Will current AI be illegal in the EU in 2018?

Silicon Valley and the EU have never really seen eye to eye, but a recent regulation – that means citizens have the right to demand an explanation to an algorithmic decision by 2018 – could drive the two to legal war. You only have to look to see how often many of the largest tech companies – but particularly Google – find themselves in front of EU courts, over their applications and how the average user interacts with them. Its search results wield enormous power and leverage online, not only in terms of what content appears on the first page of search results, but also with incredibly lucrative e-commerce business. This is where it has previously been accused of favouring its own products. What the vast majority of Google users do not realise – or any user of a search engine for that matter – is that their results are defined by months or even years of harvested data. Every search result, every click is analysed by an AI algorithm to decide what it wants to show you.