The negotiators of the European Parliament and of Advice (governments) have achieved this Friday, after more than 35 hours of negotiationclose a historic agreement to establish the first rules with which to limit the risks of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can foreseeably enter effective in 2026.

The objective of the new European regulation is to establish safety standards and fundamental rights that prevent technology from being used for repressive purposesof handling either discriminatorybut without translating into hyperregulation that hinders the competitiveness of the European Union.

The agreement was reached after three days of intense negotiations in which one of the sensitive points has been the use that law enforcement forces will be able to make of the biometric identification cameras to guarantee national security and prevent crimes such as terrorism or the protection of infrastructure.

The rule prohibits facial recognition cameras in public spaces, but governments have pushed to allow them in specific casesalways with prior judicial authorization.

The European Parliament, on the other hand, came to the negotiations with a clear intention to ban these artificial intelligence cameras, although the rapporteur of the law, the social democrat Brando Benifeiopened the door last Wednesday to allow some exceptions if they are accompanied by strong safeguards for human rights.

The other major issue that has focused the negotiations is the regulation of foundational models of artificial intelligencethe systems on which programs are based with ChatGPTfrom the company OpeanAI, or Bard, from Google.

Initially, the law was not intended to regulate these types of systems, because they had not yet become popular when Brussels proposed the law in April 2021, but Community institutions have seen the need to legislate them since the outbreak of ChatGPT last year.

The negotiations were “passionate”, since the objective of the law is to regulate the use of a technology with great possibilities for society, which at the same time generates doubts and some questions that artificial intelligence developers still do not know how to answeraccording to sources familiar with the debates.