Dragoș Tudorache is one of the most important players in European AI policy. He is one of the two lead negotiators of the AI Act in the European Parliament--the first sweeping AI law of its kind in the world, which will enter into force this year. Shepherding the Act into its final form has been a wild ride, with intense negotiations, the rise of ChatGPT, lobbying from tech companies, and a flip-flopping by some of Europe's largest economies. But now, as it's passed into law, Tudorache's job on it is done and dusted, and he has no regrets. Melissa Heikkilä, our senior AI reporter, sat down with Tudorache at an AI conference just outside Brussels to hear more about why he believes the landmark law will change the AI sector for the better.

A former interior minister, Tudorache is one of the most important players in European AI policy. He is one of the two lead negotiators of the AI Act in the European Parliament. The bill, the first sweeping AI law of its kind in the world, will enter into force this year. We first met two years ago, when Tudorache was appointed to his position as negotiator. But Tudorache's interest in AI started much earlier, in 2015.

The European Parliament has given final approval to wide-ranging rules to govern artificial intelligence. The far-reaching regulation – the Artificial Intelligence Act – was passed by lawmakers on Wednesday. Senior European Union officials said the rules, first proposed in 2021, will protect citizens from the possible risks of a technology developing at breakneck speed while also fostering innovation. Brussels has sprinted to pass the new law since Microsoft-backed OpenAI's ChatGPT arrived on the scene in late 2022, unleashing a global AI race. Just 46 lawmakers in the European Parliament in Strasbourg voted against the proposal.

The world's first comprehensive laws to regulate artificial intelligence have been agreed in a landmark deal after a marathon 37-hour negotiation between the European Parliament and EU member states. The agreement was described as "historic" by Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner responsible for a suite of laws in Europe that will also govern social media and search engines, covering giants such as X, TikTok and Google. Breton said 100 people had been in a room for almost three days to seal the deal. He said it was "worth the few hours of sleep" to make the "historic" deal. Carme Artigas, Spain's secretary of state for AI, who facilitated the negotiations, said France and Germany supported the text, amid reports that tech companies in those countries were fighting for a lighter touch approach to foster innovation among small companies.

The EU is within "touching distance" of passing the world's first laws on artificial intelligence, giving Brussels the power to shut down services that cause harm to society, says the AI tsar who has spent the last four years developing the legislation. "Artificial intelligence does have a profound impact on everything we do and therefore it was time to bring in some safeguards and guardrails on how this technology will evolve for the benefit of our citizens" said Dragoș Tudorache, a Romanian MEP and co-rapporteur of the parliamentary committee steering through the legislation, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian. Speaking in his Brussels parliamentary office, Tudorache said: "I'm more optimistic than I am pessimistic about AI. I would be a pessimist if we did nothing about it." Tudorache said there was a chance he could get a final text agreed for the AI Act by Wednesday.

The EU has taken a major step towards passing one of the world's first laws governing artificial intelligence after its main legislative branch approved the text of draft legislation that includes a blanket ban on police use of live facial recognition technology in public places. The European parliament approved rules aimed at setting a global standard for the technology, which encompasses everything from automated medical diagnoses to some types of drone, AI-generated videos known as deepfakes, and bots such as ChatGPT. MEPs will now thrash out details with EU countries before the draft rules – known as the AI act – become legislation. "AI raises a lot of questions socially, ethically, economically. But now is not the time to hit any'pause button'. On the contrary, it is about acting fast and taking responsibility," said Thierry Breton, the European commissioner for the internal market.

Rishi Sunak will set out his views on artificial intelligence (AI) next week to an audience of technology industry insiders during a keynote speech at London Tech Week. Twenty-four hours later, the Labour leader Keir Starmer will do the same. The prime minister and Starmer have a habit of speaking at the same venue within a day of each other – they did so at the beginning of the year when setting out their competing visions for the country from the same room at the Olympic Park in east London. The fact they are doing so again but on the far more technical and detailed question of AI shows how quickly the issue has rocketed up the political agenda. "We have been working on AI policy for a long time," said one government official.

Moves to ban live "Big Brother" facial recognition technology from being deployed across the streets of the EU will be tested in a key vote at the European parliament on Thursday. The amendment is part of a package of proposals for the world's first artificial intelligence laws, which could see firms fined up to €10m (£8.7m) or removed from trading within the EU for breaches of the rules. But the ban is expected to be challenged by a group of centre-right MEPs on the grounds that biometric scanning should be deployed to combat serious crime such as terrorism. An amendment to Article 5 of the proposed Artificial Intelligence Act prohibiting the use of cameras to follow people around shops, streets, parks or any other public places will go before the committee on Thursday. It will also ban companies from using AI to identify individuals by match scans on CCTV with images posted by users on Instagram, Facebook or other social media platforms.

The breathtaking development of artificial intelligence has dazzled users by composing music, creating images and writing essays, while also raising fears about its implications. Even European Union officials working on groundbreaking rules to govern the emerging technology were caught off guard by AI's rapid rise. The 27-nation bloc proposed the Western world's first AI rules two years ago, focusing on reining in risky but narrowly focused applications. General purpose AI systems like chatbots were barely mentioned. Lawmakers working on the AI Act considered whether to include them but weren't sure how, or even if it was necessary.

Artificial intelligence's newest sensation -- the gabby chatbot-on-steroids ChatGPT -- is sending European rulemakers back to the drawing board on how to regulate AI. The chatbot dazzled the internet in past months with its rapid-fire production of human-like prose. It declared its love for a New York Times journalist. It wrote a haiku about monkeys breaking free from a laboratory. It even got to the floor of the European Parliament, where two German members gave speeches drafted by ChatGPT to highlight the need to rein in AI technology.