Thilo Brodtmann, Managing Director of the VDMA, called for the AI Act to be passed now on the occasion of the trilogue negotiations between the EU institutions in order to create a secure framework for the development and application of these technologies in Europe.
Brodtmann warned that postponement or failure would further prolong the period of uncertainty and could lead to the European Union losing touch with international developments. The AI law is far from perfect and, from the perspective of the plant and mechanical engineering industry, a technology-neutral design would have been necessary, said Brodtmann.
However, the EU Commission's draft law was improved in many ways during the legislative process and the results represent an acceptable compromise. According to Brodtmann, it is unlikely that further negotiations or even a new proposal in the next legislative period will produce a better proposal. A timely conclusion to the negotiations is now important. In addition, more time should be provided for implementation in the form of practicable transitional periods.
Failure of the law must not be allowed to happen
A failure of the law due to a dispute between the EU Parliament and the member states over the regulation of general-purpose AI and basic models such as GPT-4 should not be allowed to happen. If no agreement can be reached, these areas should be excluded and regulated with the help of industry self-regulation, for example in the form of a 'Code of Conduct'.
