AI agreement significant step forward say Urso, Butti

(ANSA) - ROME, DEC 9 - Business and Made in Italy Minister Adolfo Urso and Alessio Butti, the cabinet undersecretary with the innovation portfolio, on Saturday welcomed the provisional agreement on the Artificial Intelligence Act reached by the European Commission, the European Parliament and the European Council on Friday.
    "It is a significant step for the development of artificial intelligence in the EU and in Italy," Urso and Butti said in a statement.
    "Italy will reiterate the need for a simple and clear regulatory framework that reflects a balance between technological progress and the safeguarding of Constitutionally-oriented ethical principles and of citizens' rights (when the agreement is submitted to the European governments for final approval)". The European Union's AI Act is set to become the world's first law on artificial intelligence (AI).
    Under the agreement, a series of AI uses would be banned.
    These include: biometric categorisation systems that use sensitive characteristics (e.g. political, religious, philosophical beliefs, sexual orientation, race); untargeted scraping of facial images from the internet or CCTV footage to create facial recognition databases; emotion recognition in the workplace and educational institutions; social scoring based on social behaviour or personal characteristics; AI systems that manipulate human behaviour to circumvent their free will; AI used to exploit the vulnerabilities of people (due to their age, disability, social or economic situation). (ANSA).