The European Union, the US, the UK and other countries in the Council of Europe (CoE) signed on Thursday the first legally binding treaty on AI systems that hopes to reign in on usage and standards of the developing technology.
The treaty is an open one that can be signed by other countries around the world. CoE’s Secretary-General Marija Pejcinovic Buric urged more countries to sign it and wants the countries that did it already to start ratifying it as soon as possible.
“We must ensure that the rise of AI upholds our standards, rather than undermining them,” she said.
The treaty was signed by the EU, US and UK and by Andorra, Georgia, Iceland, Norway, Moldova, San Marino and Israel. Argentina, Australia, Canada, Costa Rica, the Vatican, Japan, Mexico, Peru and Uruguay are involved in negotiations on it.
The signing event was held during a conference of Council of Europe Ministers of Justice in Vilnius, Lithuania. The Council is not affiliated with the EU and promotes international cooperation. It currently has 47 members.
The signature happened after the EU pushed forward its own Artificial Intelligence Act. The EU treaty is more focused on regulation of AI in selected sectors to avoid potentially dangerous usage.
The treaty signed at the Council of Europe focused more in providing “a legal framework covering the entire lifecycle of AI systems,” and “it promotes AI progress and innovation, while managing the risks it may pose to human rights, democracy and the rule of law,” according to a press statement issued after the signing.
However, the broad scope and the open nature of the treaty attracted some criticism. Reuters spoke with Francesca Fanucci, a legal expert at the Hague-based European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL) NGO who pointed that “the formulation of principles and obligations in this convention is so overbroad and fraught with caveats that it raises serious questions about their legal certainty and effective enforceability.
