How do the US and the EU differ in how they define AI?

AI is moving fast and so is regulation. In this episode, Rikka founder Charlyn Ho offers a high-level comparison of how the European Union and the United States are approaching AI governance:

The EU AI Act takes a broad, proactive stance, defining AI as any system that operates with autonomy and adaptiveness to generate impactful outputs. Its focus: transparency, safety, and bias reduction.

The U.S. is taking a more decentralized approach, relying on a mix of nonbinding guidelines, federal mandates, and state-level laws, without a comprehensive national framework (yet).

These contrasting frameworks say a lot about each region’s legal culture and raise important questions for lawyers working across borders or advising clients on compliance.

Transcript

Artificial intelligence is reshaping our world, and it’s being regulated in different ways by different jurisdictions.

So in this video, we’ll dive into how two major players, the European Union and the United States, are tackling AI governance at a high level. The European Union is taking a proactive approach with its EU AI Act, aiming for a comprehensive regulatory framework. According to the EU AI Act, an AI system is defined as a machine-based system designed to operate with varying levels of autonomy. It may exhibit adaptiveness after deployment and is meant to achieve explicit or implicit objectives.

The system does this by inferring from input data how to generate outputs like predictions, content, recommendations, or decisions that impact physical or virtual environments.

This broad definition ensures that AI systems operating in the EU are not only innovative but also responsible and transparent, with a specific focus on safety, fairness, and reducing bias. The United States, on the other hand, has two different approaches for regulating AI, ranging from nonbinding guidelines to binding mandates for federal agencies.

Note that there’s no current federal law in the US governing AI broadly that is akin to the EU AI act. Although several states are enacting state level regulations to govern AI. The US also has an executive order on AI.

So while the EU aims for a unified regulatory framework for all AI systems within its jurisdiction, the US is focusing on guiding principles and specific mandates for government use at the federal level. These differing approaches reflect each jurisdiction’s priorities, be it widespread regulation or a targeted sector specific focus. So AI is developing fast, and so are the rules to keep it in check. As different jurisdictions take distinct paths, one thing remains clear: regulating AI is a global conversation, and it’s only just begun.

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