How businesses should respond to the EU's Artificial Intelligence Act

The EU strikes again with a new set of regulations that take aim at the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to address the variety of risks associated with the societal adoption of AI. Like its sibling the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the Artificial Intelligence Act (AIA) actually has teeth, with fines rising to €30 million, or 6% of global revenue. Is the answer to delete all your AI systems to minimize your risk to zero, or continue using AI for a competitive edge? Can you manage the recurring costs required to maintain compliance with the AIA even as the technology itself increases your bottomline? Take the famous UK pub chain JD Wetherspoon, founded by British businessman Tim Martin in 1979 who has been an outspoken critic of the EU and a Brexit campaigner. Their response to personal identifiable information (PII) protection, legislated by the GDPR in 2017, was to delete their entire CRM database.