The European Commission’s Article 50 of the AI Act governing AI transparency has come into force, mandating that labels notifying that content is generated by AI be labeled.
Article 50 is a part of a larger legislation called the EU Artificial Intelligence Act under which Article 2(1)(c) states that the laws apply to providers and deployers of AI output is used in the “Union.” That means that the laws apply to producers of the content that can be accessed on the open web by content consumers who are located in the EU.
Fortunately, there are four exemptions that provide exceptions that may let some content publishers off the hook, regardless if they are located in the EU or outside of it.
1. Artistic And Satirical Deep Fake Exemption #
This exemption is for AI systems that generate or manipulate deep fake content that is “evidently” artistic, creative, satirical, fictional or “analogous” work or “programme.”
Article 50 explains:
“Deployers of an AI system that generates or manipulates image, audio or video content constituting a deep fake, shall disclose that the content has been artificially generated or manipulated. This obligation shall not apply where the use is authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offence. Where the content forms part of an evidently artistic, creative, satirical, fictional or analogous work or programme, the transparency obligations set out in this paragraph are limited to disclosure of the existence of such generated or manipulated content in an appropriate manner that does not hamper the display or enjoyment of the work.”
2. Publisher Exemptions #
What may be of interest to most online publishers is the exemption that governs AI manipulated text. It says that the “deployers” of AI systems that generate or manipulates text that informs of public interest content are obligated to publish a disclosure.
Article 50, paragraph 4 states:
“Deployers of an AI system that generates or manipulates text which is published with the purpose of informing the public on matters of public interest shall disclose that the text has been artificially generated or manipulated.”
But that section also contains an exception for publishers under two different conditions, one of which is applies when the content has undergone human editorial review.
The section explains:
“This obligation shall not apply where the use is authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences or where the AI-generated content has undergone a process of human review or editorial control and where a natural or legal person holds editorial responsibility for the publication of the content.”
3. The Standard Editing And Assistive Tool Exemption #
This exemption applies to systems that provide an “assistive function for standard editing” or don’t significantly alter the inputs.
Here’s what the explanation of the exemption:
“This obligation shall not apply to the extent the AI systems perform an assistive function for standard editing or do not substantially alter the input data provided by the deployer or the semantics thereof, or where authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences.”
4. The Obvious Use Exemption For Interactive AI #
This exemption is for providers of AI systems that are interactive.
Article 50 describes it:
“Providers shall ensure that AI systems intended to interact directly with natural persons are designed and developed in such a way that the natural persons concerned are informed that they are interacting with an AI system, unless this is obvious from the point of view of a natural person who is reasonably well-informed, observant and circumspect, taking into account the circumstances and the context of use. This obligation shall not apply to AI systems authorised by law to detect, prevent, investigate or prosecute criminal offences, subject to appropriate safeguards for the rights and freedoms of third parties, unless those systems are available for the public to report a criminal offence.”
There are many other use cases that are not exempted, but the above are the four main exemptions to Article 50.
Ambiguities In Article 50 #
An interesting quality about the Article 50 exemptions is that there seems to be considerable ambiguity in the way it is written.
Artistic And Satirical Deep Fake Exemption
What qualifies as artistic or Satirical? The phrase “Evidently artistic, creative, satirical” is a very wide description. Satire is subjective.
Another ambiguity is the part about adding a disclosure in an “appropriate manner that does not hamper display or enjoyment.” There is no description of what constitutes “appropriate” disclosure.
Human Editorial Review
The law does not say what constitutes a human review. Is it enough to give it a passing glance? And what constitutes “public interest?” Are review and recipe sites public interest sites or does that only apply to political sites? Article 50 doesn’t explain any of that.
Editing And Assistive Tool Exemption
AI editing is fine under Article 50 except when the AI “substantially” alters the input data. Well, what constitutes substantially? That’s not defined by Article 50, either.
Obvious Use Exemption For Interactive AI
This exemption waives the need for disclosure if it is “obvious” that a person is interacting with an AI system. What does obvious mean? There is a fair amount of gray area there for chatbots. Is it enough if a voice purposely sounds robotic?
Read the full text of Article 50. Featured Image by Shutterstock/Alexandros Michailidis