Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. BRUSSELS (AP) -- European Union lawmakers approved Wednesday a major revamp of the bloc's migration laws, hoping to end years of division over how to manage the entry of thousands of people without authorization and deprive the far right of a vote-winning campaign issue ahead of June elections. In a series of 10 votes, members of the European Parliament endorsed the regulations and policies that make up the Pact on Migration and Asylum. The reforms address the thorny issue of who should take responsibility for migrants when they arrive and whether other EU countries should be obliged to help. The proceedings were briefly interrupted by a small but noisy group of demonstrators in the public gallery who wore shirts marked "this pact kills" and shouted "vote no!" European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson, is embraced after Members of the European Parliament participated in a series of votes during a plenary session at the European Parliament in Brussels, Wednesday, April 10, 2024.

European Union negotiators clinched a deal Friday on the world's first comprehensive artificial intelligence rules, paving the way for legal oversight of AI technology that has promised to transform everyday life and spurred warnings of existential dangers to humanity. Negotiators from the European Parliament and the bloc's 27 member countries overcame big differences on controversial points including generative AI and police use of face recognition surveillance to sign a tentative political agreement for the Artificial Intelligence Act. "The EU becomes the very first continent to set clear rules for the use of AI." The result came after marathon closed-door talks this week, with the initial session lasting 22 hours before a second round kicked off Friday morning. Officials were under the gun to secure a political victory for the flagship legislation.

Artificial intelligence (AI) offers powerful new solutions across sectors of the economy to improve the lives of Canadians-from advanced health care to more efficient and sustainable resource development and agriculture. International collaboration and coordination will help realize the full potential of AI to benefit all citizens and accelerate trustworthy technology development, while fostering diversity and inclusion across the AI domain. Today, the Honourable François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry, joined leading international AI experts, including representatives from 18 GPAI member countries and the European Union, for the second annual plenary of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI) in Paris, France. During the opening ceremony, Minister Champagne highlighted the progress that GPAI has made in its first year under Canada's chairmanship and formally passed the torch to France, which is taking over as 2021-2022 GPAI Council Chair. The Minister was joined by Cédric O, France's Minister of State for the Digital Transition and Electronic Communication and the new GPAI Lead Council Chair.

Today global history was made, as the first intergovernmental standard on artificial intelligence (AI) was adopted by the OECD--a geopolitical milestone achievement. There is a worldwide investment rush underway in artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Both public and private investment funding are pouring into AI, as nations and corporations seek to gain economic benefits and competitive advantages through automation. IDC estimates the global spending on cognitive and AI systems to reach $57.6 billion by 2021. Last year the UK government announced plans to invest £300 million in AI.

In March 2018, members of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF's) executive board gave their blessing to a dramatic overhaul of the way the organisation gathers, governs and uses data. The Overarching strategy on data and statistics, the first of its kind, lays out how the fund plans to improve the quality of data, boost the ease with which it can be shared, and start making greater use of innovations in big data and artificial intelligence (AI). Key to the strategy is the "global data commons" – an ambitious, cloud‑based platform for gathering large quantities of data from IMF members. The aim is to bring all of the data together in one place in an readily comparable format, making use of common data standards and methodologies. Researchers, journalists and members of the public should no longer be required to trawl through an array of often-labyrinthine websites belonging to national statistics offices and instead be able to access all of the data through a single portal.

Europe's secret weapon in the race against the U.S. and China on artificial intelligence is … ethics. That was the message at the core of the EU's AI strategy unveiled Wednesday and developed by a team of European Commissioners under the supervision of Commission Vice President Andrus Ansip. In its "Charter on AI Ethics," the Commission wants to spell out how to preserve fundamental rights along with the rise of AI. This, the bloc believes, will boost consumer trust in European AI applications and help the Continent -- which lags far behind the U.S. and China in building a state-of-the-art AI industry -- catch up with competitors. The strategy includes a boost to the bloc's annual spending on AI research and development of about 70 percent, to around €500 million, effective immediately.