New European regulations require tech companies to prove A.I. is trustworthy

Examples include “facial recognition systems that don’t operate well with darker-skinned people and sometimes turn up horrifying results, or resumé-scanning systems that might be biased against people who are not white males,” says Fortune Deputy Editor Brian O’Keefe, co-host of the Fortune Brainstorm podcast. 

Concerns over these learned biases and their discriminatory implications, as well as the threats A.I. systems pose to individual privacy and security, have led the European Union to take steps to regulate the technology. But what will the new regulations mean for companies that develop A.I.?

“We really have to show that we are transparent,” says Alexander Beyer, A.I. chatbot conversation expert at Hubert+1. “We collect consent [during] all these different steps, explain exactly what is going to happen, how it’s going to happen, how you can remove your data, how we can remove your consent, and then have a management system in place. That kind of removes the opacity. That’s what they want.”

Beyer joins O’Keefe and co-host Michal Lev-Ram on Fortune Brainstorm, a podcast that explores how technology is reshaping our world.

Also on the show is Columbia Law School professor Anu Bradford, an expert on the European Union’s regulatory power.

“Europeans have a very human-centric approach to technology [in contrast to] the Chinese digital authoritarian model, or the more techno libertarian views that prevail traditionally in the United States,” Bradford explains. “So there’s much more of a faith that markets are not enough to provide solutions [and that] the government does need to step in, in the name of protecting those fundamental rights.”

Also weighing in on the topic is Fortune senior writer Jeremy Kahn, who covers A.I. and other disruptive technologies.

Kahn makes it clear that companies outside the EU that have European customers, use European citizens’ data, or have European employees also will have to follow the new regulations.

“If you meet any of those criteria,” Kahn says, “you have to comply with this law. Otherwise, the European Union could potentially come after you for a very large fine of 20 million euros, or as much as 4% of global revenue, whichever is larger.”