Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

techcrunch.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

321–330 of 424 posts

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#321

Post by mjburgess »

tzs wrote: post #309
Muromec wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the thinking machine rejects my mortgage application, it should be possible to point out which exact rule triggered the rejection. With rules explicitly set by an operator it's possible. It's also possible to say that the rules in place comply with the law and stay compliant during the operation, for example it doesn't unintentionally guess that I'm having another citizenship based on my surname or postal code.

If the mortgage application evaluation system is deterministic so that the same input always produces the same output then it is easy to answer "Why was my application rejected?". Just rerun the application with higher income until you get a pass. Then tell the person their application was rejected because income was not at least whatever that passing income amount was. Maybe also vary some other inputs to see if it…

That tells you how sensitive the model is along its decision boundary to permutations in the input -- but it isnt a relevant kind of reason why the application was rejected, since this decision boundary wasnt crafted by any person. We're here looking for programs which express prior normative reasoning (eg., "you should get a loan if...") -- whereas this decision boundary expresses no prior normative reason.

It is simply that, eg., "on some historical dataset, this boundary most relibaly predicted default" -- but this confers no normative reason to accept or reject any individual application (cf. the ecological fallacy). And so, in a very literal way, there is no normative reason the operator of this model has in accepting/rejecting any individual application.

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#322

Post by [deleted] »

cmenge wrote: post #307
kakadu wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me and my euro mates are not interested in this kid of "innovation". The "business investors" and "innovators" can take this kind of business elsewhere. This kind of talk where regulators are assaulted by free marketeers and freedom fighters is unacceptable here. Let us not misinterpret business people as "innovators", if what they do is not net positive for the society, they do not belong here.

I'm not sure where "here" is and who you think you speak for, but as a European, I am strictly against regulation, in particular vague regulation made by non-elected EU bureaucrats. And no, freedom of speech and a discussion about the pros and cons is also not "unacceptable". It is part of the democratic process.

[deleted]

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#323

Post by clarionbell »

kakadu wrote: post #254
hcfman wrote: post #55

Laws that are open to interpretation with drastic consequences if it's interpreted against your favour pose unacceptable risk to business investors and stifle innovation.

Me and my euro mates are not interested in this kid of "innovation". The "business investors" and "innovators" can take this kind of business elsewhere. This kind of talk where regulators are assaulted by free marketeers and freedom fighters is unacceptable here. Let us not misinterpret business people as "innovators", if what they do is not net positive for the society, they do not belong here.

You seem to very strict about the kind of political discourse that you would allow. And I'm going to even elaborate on how problematic is your "net positive or society" and who would possibly be in charge of determining that.

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#324

Post by miohtama »

verzali wrote: post #317
miohtama wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the GDPR has been largely a failure protecting citizens from corporations, but it has hurt everyone else. - Nothing has changed in Facebook and Google data collection practices, who with other bug corps account for > 90% of data collection - Many mid tier competitors lost market share, focusing power to Google - EU small software companies pay estimated extra 400 EUR/year to satisfy GDPR complianc…

I will be honest, I am always very skeptical of these claims that the big tech companies are fine but small business is hurting. Many of them seem to originate with the big tech companies themselves and I highly doubt they really have the interests of small business in mind. Plus, I'm old enough to remember when everyone claimed EU tech law was about to ban memes, which didn't happen...

Here

> The main burden falls on SMEs, which experienced an average decline in profits of 8.5 percent. In the IT sector, profits of small firms fell by 12.5 percent on average. Large firms, too, are affected, with profits declining by 7.9 percent on average. Curiously, large firms in the IT sector saw the smallest decline in profits, of “only” 4.6 percent. Specifically, the authors find “no significant impacts on large tech companies, like Facebook, Apple and Google, on either profits or sales,” putting to bed the myth that U.S. technology firms are the enemy of regulation because it hits their bottom lines.

https://datainnovation.org/2022/04/a-new-study-lays-bare-the...

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#325

Post by profeatur »

theyinwhy wrote: post #247
DocTomoe wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU in a nutshell: You can't have nice things, but on the bright side Google/Apple/Facebook won't know what you had for dinner. Now give us your whole financial transaction and travel history, so we can share it with the US, a hostile country, citizen!

Genuinely curious: What are those nice things Europe cannot have?

Well, most things, considering the absolutely pathetic average salary, the rising cost of living, and the ever-increasing tax burden.

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#326

Post by phtrivier »

cmenge wrote: post #307
kakadu wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Me and my euro mates are not interested in this kid of "innovation". The "business investors" and "innovators" can take this kind of business elsewhere. This kind of talk where regulators are assaulted by free marketeers and freedom fighters is unacceptable here. Let us not misinterpret business people as "innovators", if what they do is not net positive for the society, they do not belong here.

I'm not sure where "here" is and who you think you speak for, but as a European, I am strictly against regulation, in particular vague regulation made by non-elected EU bureaucrats. And no, freedom of speech and a discussion about the pros and cons is also not "unacceptable". It is part of the democratic process.

The AI act was voted by very-much-elected members of the EU parliament, in 2023, with a large consensus: 523 votes for, 46 against, 49 abstentions. [1]

[1] https://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/fr/press-room/20240308IP...

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#327

Post by profeatur »

thiago_fm wrote: post #242

Love the EU, living here is the best. There are plenty of companies in the EU using and developing AI even with the fact that Americans say we have "heavy regulation", it isn't just in the same ballpark as the US and China, which both have much bigger potential markets and a stronger VC base with of course, more money. The lack of regulations from the US in AI creates a very harsh atmosphere for the population. It's…

> It's so naive to think that Meta/Google(Youtube) doesn't have power to manipulate people's opinion

We have that here too, except in our case it’s the government using the good old fashioned medium of television.

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#328

Post by mavhc »

tw04 wrote: post #318
miohtama wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that the GDPR has been largely a failure protecting citizens from corporations, but it has hurt everyone else. - Nothing has changed in Facebook and Google data collection practices, who with other bug corps account for > 90% of data collection - Many mid tier competitors lost market share, focusing power to Google - EU small software companies pay estimated extra 400 EUR/year to satisfy GDPR complianc…

> The problem is that the GDPR has been largely a failure protecting citizens from corporations, but it has hurt everyone else. This is just laughably incorrect. Literally every Fortune 500 that I work with who has operations in Europe has an entire team that owns GDPR compliance. It is one of the most successful projects to curtail businesses treating private data like poker chips since HIPAA.

Is their job to reduce private data to the minimum needed, or the maximum allowed?

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#329

Post by profeatur »

mrfinn wrote: post #283

Hope this law doesn't become into a peasant-trap. But my gut is telling me that... that's exactly what it is. ("This and that is forbidden EXCEPT to us because blah blah blah")

That’s what nearly all UE regulation is. Most of these regulators are on the payroll of 200 year old companies who maintain their control of the economy by preventing any real challengers from rising.

Re: AI systems with 'unacceptable risk' are now banned in the EU

#330

Post by huijzer »

miohtama wrote: post #324
verzali wrote: post #317

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I will be honest, I am always very skeptical of these claims that the big tech companies are fine but small business is hurting. Many of them seem to originate with the big tech companies themselves and I highly doubt they really have the interests of small business in mind. Plus, I'm old enough to remember when everyone claimed EU tech law was about to ban memes, which didn't happen...

Here > The main burden falls on SMEs, which experienced an average decline in profits of 8.5 percent. In the IT sector, profits of small firms fell by 12.5 percent on average. Large firms, too, are affected, with profits declining by 7.9 percent on average. Curiously, large firms in the IT sector saw the smallest decline in profits, of “only” 4.6 percent. Specifically, the authors find “no significant impacts on larg…

That is typically the problem with regulations. It’s usually easier for large companies to comply. It’s called regulatory caption.
Post reply on HN