Monthly Archives: February 2024

EU countries give crucial nod to first-of-a-kind Artificial Intelligence law

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The ambassadors of the 27 countries of the European Union unanimously approved the world’s first comprehensive rulebook for Artificial Intelligence, rubber-stamping the political agreement reached in December.

In December, EU policymakers reached a political agreement on the main sticking points of the AI Act, a flagship bill to regulate Artificial Intelligence based on its capacity to cause harm. The complexity of the law meant its technical refinement took more than one month.

On 24 January, the Belgian presidency of the Council of EU Ministers presented the final version of the text, leaked in an exclusive by Euractiv, at a technical meeting. Most member states maintained reservations at the time as they did not have enough time to analyse the text comprehensively.

These reservations were finally lifted with the adoption of the AI Act from the Committee of Permanent Representatives on Friday (2 February). However, the green light from EU ambassadors was not guaranteed since some European heavyweights resisted parts of the provisional deal until the very last days.

European Union squares the circle on the world’s first AI rulebook

After a 36-hour negotiating marathon, EU policymakers reached a political agreement on what is set to become the global benchmark for regulating Artificial Intelligence.

Powerful AI models

The primary opponent of the political agreement was France, which, together with Germany and Italy, asked for a lighter regulatory regime for powerful AI models, such as Open AI’s GPT-4, that support General Purpose AI systems like ChatGPT and Bard.

Europe’s three largest economies asked for limiting the rules in this area to codes of conduct, as they did not want to clip the wings to promising European start-ups like Mistral AI and Aleph Alpha that might challenge American companies in this space.

Read: France, Germany and Italy were deeply in the pocket of AI firm lobbyists and created a lot of time wasting opposition to good laws, allowing the big boys to gain further grounds over the little guys whilst they were themselves signing letters asking for moratoriums on dangerous world destroying AI research.

However, the European Parliament was united in asking for hard rules for these models, considering that it was unacceptable to carve out the most potent types of Artificial Intelligence from the regulation while leaving all the regulatory burden on smaller actors.

The compromise was based on a tiered approach, with horizontal transparency rules for all models and additional obligations for compelling models deemed to entail a systemic risk.

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The Belgian presidency put the member states before a ‘take-it-or-leave-it’ scenario and, despite attempts from France to delay the ambassadors’ vote, kept a tight timeline -partially to allow enough time for the legal polishing of the text and partially to limit last-minute lobbying.

French back-room manoeuvring aimed at gathering sufficient opposition to obtain concessions in the text or even reject the provisional agreement.

However, the balance titled decisively against Paris as Berlin decided to support the text earlier this week. The German Digital Minister, the liberal Volker Wissing, found himself isolated in its opposition to the AI rulebook from the coalition partners and had to drop his reservations.

Italy, always the most defiladed country of the sceptical trio as it does not have a leading AI start-up to defend, also decided not to oppose the AI Act. Despite discontent with the agreement, Rome opted to avoid drama as it holds the rotating presidency of the G7, where AI is a crucial topic.

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EU countries still have room to influence how the AI law will be implemented, as the Commission will have to issue around 20 acts of secondary legislation. The AI Office, which will oversee AI models, is also set to be significantly staffed with seconded national experts.

Next steps

The European Parliament’s Internal Market and Civil Liberties Committees will adopt the AI rulebook on 13 February, followed by a plenary vote provisionally scheduled for 10-11 April. The formal adoption will then be complete with endorsement at the ministerial level.

The AI Act will enter into force 20 days after publication in the official journal. The bans on the prohibited practices will start applying after six months, whereas the obligations on AI models will start after one year.

All the rest of the rules will kick in after two years, except for the classification of AI systems that have to undergo third-party conformity assessment under other EU rules as high-risk, which was delayed by one additional year.

Source: EU countries give crucial nod to first-of-a-kind Artificial Intelligence law – Euractiv

Google Search’s cache links are unfortunately being retired

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Google has removed links to page caches from its search results page, the company’s search liaison Danny Sullivan has confirmed. “It was meant for helping people access pages when way back, you often couldn’t depend on a page loading,” Sullivan wrote on X. “These days, things have greatly improved. So, it was decided to retire it.”

The cache feature historically let you view a webpage as Google sees it, which is useful for a variety of different reasons beyond just being able to see a page that’s struggling to load. SEO professionals could use it to debug their sites or even keep tabs on competitors, and it can also be an enormously helpful news gathering tool, giving reporters the ability to see exactly what information a company has added (or removed) from a website, and a way to see details that people or companies might be trying to scrub from the web. Or, if a site is blocked in your region, Google’s cache can work as a great alternative to a VPN.

A page’s cache has typically been accessible via a couple of different routes. There was a “Cached” button that would appear at the bottom of the “About this result” panel accessible from the three button menu next to a search result. And, for those in the know, you could also append the prefix “cache:” to a URL before searching for it to hop instantly into Google’s cached version.

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It doesn’t sound like Google has any immediate plans to replace the feature, but Sullivan says he hopes that Google could add links to the Internet Archive that could instead be used to show how a webpage has changed over time. “No promises,” he cautions. “We have to talk to them, see how it all might go — involves people well beyond me. But I think it would be nice all around.”

Source: Google Search’s cache links are officially being retired – The Verge

Read: this useful feature wasn’t making Google any money, so they decided to go cost cutting.

Consumers still pay too much to call another EU country – wait, wasn’t there free roaming?!

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The EU single market holds many advantages. To be able to travel, work or purchase goods effortlessly across numerous different countries creates all kinds of opportunities for consumers. But there are still areas where it is not working or has simply not been accomplished, even if it would be the most logical and appropriate thing to do.

International intra-EU calls are one of them. It is often still prohibitively expensive to call someone who lives in a different EU country.

Since the end of roaming charges in 2017, which used to apply when you travelled to another country and called somebody back home, consumers have enjoyed their phones without the risk of a bill shock on a trip inside the EU. But they are confused that, today, calling their friends and family in another country from the comfort of their own home can cost up to €0.19 per minute on top of what they pay for their phone subscription.

Caps in place

At least since 2019, there have been EU price caps on what telecom operators can apply as a surcharge for this call. EU decision-makers then placed limits rather than remove the surcharges altogether to review the caps by 2024.

But that review has not taken place. The price caps will lapse in May this year if no action is taken, threatening to dramatically increase the prices consumers pay for a call to another country.

This could mean consumers end up with less usable alternatives like online messaging apps, with all the data protection and privacy risks they can sometimes entail, or simply stop calling another EU country.

How can we face this situation today, six years after roaming ended?

Good for telecoms, bad for everyone else

Consumers and companies who do business across borders are losing out daily by paying higher prices, while telecom companies pay the difference for their shareholders.

This is despite telecom companies admitting that costs for such calls are decreasing yearly as better, more efficient infrastructure gets rolled out.

Companies like Telefonica or Deutsche Telekom have argued passionately over 2023 for the need to loosen EU competition rules so that they can consolidate across borders because we live in a European single market. But strangely, they do not want to let consumers benefit from a market without borders. It is time for the single market to work for consumers, not just telecom companies.

Intra-EU call surcharges are a gift from a bygone era to a sector asking for all kinds of advantages today. The surcharges should be banned, just as they were for roaming.

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The Gigabit Infrastructure Act and its expected final round of negotiations on Monday, 5 February, is the last chance not only to ‘save the caps’ and continue the status quo, as many want but also the opportunity for the EU to go one step further and finally ban the surcharges altogether.

Source: Call me maybe (not)? Consumers still pay too much to call another EU country – Euractiv

Oddly enough, Dutch telecom providers don’t charge to call another EU country, so for Dutch people, it will be a surprise that other countries telecom providers do charge

The European Space Agency will test 3D metal printer metal on the ISS

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The first metal 3D printer that will be used in space is on its way to the International Space Station. The Cygnus NG-20 supply mission, which is carrying the 180kg (397 lbs) printer, launched on Tuesday and is set to arrive at the ISS on Thursday.

Astronaut Andreas Mogensen will install the printer, which Airbus developed for the European Space Agency. The machine will then be controlled and monitored from Earth.

Polymer-based 3D printers have been employed on the ISS in the past, but metal 3D printing in orbit is said to pose a trickier challenge. The machine will use a form of stainless steel that’s often used for water treatment and medical implants because of how well it resists corrosion.

After the stainless steel wire is pushed into the printing area, the printer melts it with a laser said to be a million times more powerful than a typical laser pointer. The printer then adds the melted metal to the print.

The melting point of the metal is around 1,400°C and the printer will run inside a completely sealed box. Before the printer can operate, it needs to vent its oxygen into space and replace its atmosphere with nitrogen. Otherwise, the melted metal would oxidize when it became exposed to oxygen.

Given the higher temperatures that are employed compared with a plastic 3D printer (which heats to around 200°C), “the safety of the crew and the Station itself have to be ensured — while maintenance possibilities are also very limited,” ESA technical officer Rob Postema told the agency’s website. “If successful though, the strength, conductivity and rigidity of metal would take the potential of in-space 3D printing to new heights.”

Four test prints are scheduled. The printer will replicate reference prints that have been created back on Earth. The two versions will be compared to help scientists understand how printing quality and performance differs in space. Even though each print will weigh less than 250g (8.8 ounces) and be smaller than a soda can, it will take the printer between two and four weeks to create each one. The printer will only be in operation for a maximum of four hours each day, since its fans and motor are fairly loud and the ISS has noise regulations.

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Source: The European Space Agency will test 3D printing metal on the ISS