IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021 - 55

A Wide Human-Rights
Approach to Artificial
Intelligence Regulation
in Europe
Jesús Salgado-Criado
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Escuela
Técnica Superior de Ingenieros Industriales,
Madrid 28006, Spain
Celia Fernández-Aller
Universidad Politécnica de Madrid, Escuela
Técnica Superior de Ingeniería en Sistemas
Informáticos, Madrid 28031, Spain
Editor's note:
This article was written before the publication by the EU Commission of its
proposal for an artificial intelligence (AI) regulation [29]. In a first and provisional
analysis of the proposed regulation, we observe that the proposed regulation
incorporates some of the basic principles laid down in our article: it prioritizes
fundamental rights and incorporates some human rights principles, such as
accountability, and the inclusion of governance through supervisory authorities
to implement and enforce the regulation. Nevertheless, we still feel that many
of the suggestions present in our article, which would help to operationalize
the regulation, are not addressed. One example is the reduced scope of the
regulation to a list of " high risk applications, " leaving without a legal framework
all other AI applications. We believe that the principles that inspire the
regulation should also be applied in " lower risk applications. " Defining only the
compliance process for AI developers, but leaving open the specific technical
requirements that these high risk applications shall meet leaves untouched the
existing gap between legal language and engineering practice. There are no
described mechanisms by which all stakeholders (other than developers and
implementers) can influence AI development, monitor their performance or
claim redress if harmed. These shortcomings and other issues presented in our
article leave the door open to loopholes that we hope the European Parliament
can fix during the legislative process.
 On February 19, 2020, the European Commission
launched a public consultation on its White
Paper on AI-a European approach to excellence
and trust [1]. Many social actors have seen this as
an opportunity to comment on the proposals to
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2021.3056284
Date of current version: 3 June 2021.
June 2021
guarantee the development
of a human-centric,
ethical, sustainable, and
rights-based AI.
The White Paper is
unveiling the intention for
an European Union (EU)
regulatory framework for
AI in its section 5, " An
ecosystem of trust: regulatory
framework for AI. " In
this article, we critically
discuss the EU approach
in two directions: first,
discussing what is, in fact,
written and whether this
regulation approach is
based on solid principles
and second, on what is
not yet written but needs
to be specified with sufficient
depth and in more
concrete terms. It is, in our understanding, in these
second-layer areas that will ultimately rely an operational
regulation of AI.
AI is expanding and algorithms are omnipresent
in today's human life, which cannot be understood
without them. They provide many benefits and at the
same time some have shown risks and threats. Algorithms
can cause opaque decision-making, social and
0278-0097/21©2021 IEEE
55
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - June 2021

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