The European Union’s proposed artificial intelligence (AI) regulation, released on April 21, is a direct challenge to Silicon Valley’s common view that law should leave emerging technology alone. The proposal sets out a nuanced regulatory structure that bans some uses of AI, heavily regulates high-risk uses and lightly regulates less risky AI systems.

While Americans may caricature the EU’s position as just the latest example of its “rules first” approach to technology regulation, in fact it is positive that it favors selective, sector-specific and risk-based regulation, consider two US Scholars