The European AI Act and How It Matters for Research into AI in Media and Journalism

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Disclosure Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council laying down harmonised rules on Artificial Intelligence (Artificial Intelligence Act) and amending certain Union legislative acts, COM/2021/206 final. Please note: at the time of writing, the AI Act was still a first proposal. This commentary discusses the act in the version that was published by the European Commission on 21 April 2021. The substance of the regulation as well as the article numbers can change in the final version of the law.

2 Independent High-Level Expert Group on Artificial Intelligence, Ethics Guidelines for Trustworthy AI, Brussels, 8 April 2019.

3 Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on a Single Market For Digital Services (Digital Services Act) and amending Directive 2000/31/ECCOM/2020/825 final, the Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on contestable and fair markets in the digital sector (Digital Markets Act), COM/2020/842 final.

4 Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on European data governance (Data Governance Act), COM/2020/767 final, Proposal for a REGULATION OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT AND OF THE COUNCIL on harmonised rules on fair access to and use of data (Data Act), Brussels, 23.2.2022, COM(2022) 68 final.

5 COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS On the European democracy action plan, COM/2020/790 final; Call for Evidence for an Impact Assessment, Safeguarding media freedom and pluralism in the internal market (Media Freedom Act), Ares(2021)7899801 - 21/12/2021.

6 Recital 11 draft AI Act.

7 Art. 2 (1) draft AI Act, Recital 6.

8 Art. 3 (1) draft AI Act.

9 For excellent more comprehensive descriptions o f the content of the regulation see (Veale and Zuiderveen Borgesius 2021; Spindler 2021; Floridi 2021).

10 Art. 29 draft AI Act.

11 Art. 7 (2) draft AI Act.

12 Art. 26 of the Digital Services Act.

13 Art. 53 draft AI Act.

14 Art. 52(1) draft AI Act.

15 https://thefix.media/2021/10/12/digital-revolution-high-end-digitization-solutions-from-the-biggest-norwegian-daily/

16 https://www.bbc.com/news/business-56278411

17 Point 6(c) of Annex III in conjunction with Article 6(2) of AI Act.

18 Art. 69 draft AI Act.

19 Recommendation CM/Rec(2020)1 of the Committee of Ministers to member States on the human rights impacts of algorithmic systems, Adopted by the Committee of Ministers on 8 April 2020.

20 European Commission, Proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on the transparency and targeting of political advertising, Brussels, 25.11.2021, COM(2021) 731 final.