The Senate Plenary approved this Tuesday (10) the regulatory framework for the use of artificial intelligence in the country. The text now goes to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies.
The project establishes the fundamental principles for the development and use of AI. It defines that technology must be transparent, safe, reliable, ethical, free from discriminatory bias, respecting human rights and democratic values. The project also requires that technological development, innovation, free enterprise and free competition be considered.
In addition to listing AI systems considered high risk, the project prohibits the development of some types of AI technologies that cause harm to health, safety or other fundamental rights.
The text, for example, prohibits the Public Power from creating systems that classify or rank people based on social behavior to access goods and services or public policies “in an illegitimate or disproportionate way” or AI systems that facilitate abuse or sexual exploitation of children and adolescents.
High risk
The project also defines high-risk AI systems as those that can cause harm to people or society, such as traffic control, water and electricity supply networks.
Also considered high-risk AI systems are those applied in professional education and training to determine access to an educational institution or monitor students, in addition to systems used for recruiting workers or for job promotions.
AI systems for “allocating tasks and controlling and evaluating people’s performance and behavior in the areas of employment, worker management and access to self-employment” are also considered high risk.
Other examples are AI systems for assessing priorities in essential public services, such as firefighters and healthcare. Artificial intelligence systems used by the courts to investigate crimes, or that pose a risk to individual freedoms or the Democratic Rule of Law, are also mentioned in the text.
AI systems in healthcare, such as to assist with diagnosis and medical procedures, and for the development of autonomous vehicles in public spaces are other examples of high-risk artificial intelligence systems listed by the project.
Big techs
During the proceedings in the Senate, it was removed the device which considered the AI systems used by digital platforms, the so-called big techs, to produce, analyze, recommend and distribute content as high risk.
According to the rapporteur, senator Eduardo Gomes (PL-TO), the removal of this section was an agreement between the benches to make bill 2,338 of 2023, authored by the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), advance the vote.
The text was approved in a symbolic vote in the temporary committee created to analyze the topic.
* With information from Agência Senado
