EU requests online platforms to label if content generated by AI

By Agnes Szucs

BRUSSELS (AA) – The European Commission demands online platforms to label if their content was generated by artificial intelligence, an EU commissioner announced on Monday.

Vera Jourova, the EU executive body's vice president in charge of values and transparency, spoke at a news conference after a meeting with the representatives of leading tech companies that signed the EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation.

Online platforms that offer “services with a potential to disseminate AI-generated information should put in place technology to recognize such content and clearly label this to users,” she said.

The European Commission also requests firms that include generative AI in their products, such as Microsoft’s Bing Chat or Google’s Bard to “build in necessary safeguards that these services cannot be used by malicious actors to generate this information,” Jourova added.

She warned of the “new risks and the potential for negative consequences for society” of AI technologies because chat boxes, image or voice generators can be used for spreading disinformation.

Jourova said the EU expects the online platforms to apply the new provisions “immediately.”

She also asserted that Twitter, which quit the EU’s voluntary rulebook last week, made a “mistake” and "chose the hard way, they chose confrontation” with the EU because it drew “a lot of attention, and its actions and compliance with EU law will be scrutinized vigorously and urgently.”

She also stressed that even if participation in the Code of Practice is not mandatory, many of its measures will become legally binding once the bloc’s new Digital Services Act enters into force.

The EU’s Code of Practice on Disinformation has currently 44 signatories, including Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn and Google.