EU Commission failing to keep pace with AI developments, lawmaker says

The European Commission has failed to keep pace with AI developments, Axel Voss, a key German conservative lawmaker on tech policy, said in an interview.

An EPP ally of Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in the European Parliament, Voss criticized the way the Commission is enforcing its artificial intelligence rules in the wake of a series of AI hacking incidents, including OpenAI-powered agents going rogue and breaking into the AI company Hugging Face.

"The whole working method of the European Commission is not adapted to these extremely fast-changing ... developments," he said during a POLITICO podcast interview that goes live Friday.

The enforcement of the EU's 2024 AI Act, which mandates that companies take measures to avoid losing control of their models, "is not on the level [where] we would like to have it," he added.

The comments shine the spotlight on the European Commission's Artificial Intelligence Office, which was put in charge of enforcing the AI Act in August.

Voss also said the Commission's overall response to the fast pace of technological developments is lagging, singling out von der Leyen's State of the Union last week.

"The Commission ... also the State of the Union is not ambitious enough regarding digital developments," said Voss, who is a member of the German Christian Democratic CDU, to which von der Leyen belongs.

One area where Voss sees a need for further regulation is liability of AI companies when their technology does damage. "What has been wrong from the beginning of this mandate is not to think about liability of AI," he said. "This can have an effect on every company."

POLITICO reported Monday that other European Parliament members have floated a proposal to add product liability provisions to address gaps in the AI Act.