EU says it will continue rolling out AI legislation on schedule

The European Union on Friday said it will stick to its timeline for implementing its landmark AI legislation, in response to a concerted effort by more than a hundred tech companies to delay the bloc’s AI rules, Reuters reported. Tech companies from across the world, including giants like Alphabet, Meta, Mistral AI and ASML have been urging the European Commission to delay rolling out the AI Act, saying it will hurt Europe’s chances to compete in the fast-evolving AI arena. “I’ve seen, indeed, a lot of reporting, a lot of letters and a lot of things being said on the AI Act. Let me be as clear as possible, there is no stop the clock. There is no grace period. There is no pause,” the report cited European Commission spokesperson Thomas Regnier as saying. A risk-based regulation for applications of artificial intelligence, the AI Act bans a handful of “unacceptable risk” use cases outright, such as cognitive behavioral manipulation or social scoring. It also defines a set of “high-r