Artificial intelligence as a new technology causes different feelings and opens up different questions. Some are afraid, skeptical and don’t want to acknowledge its existence, others have welcomed it and are already using it in their business and everyday life.
Various legal and business-legal issues such as the protection of basic human rights, the protection of personal data and data security in general, the prohibition of discrimination, issues of ethical principles, intellectual property rights, banking services, IT rights and many others that will or will be able to provide correspond with artificial intelligence.
It is not unknown to us that the innovations of private companies are often ahead of legislative regulation, which can absolutely be said for artificial intelligence as well. The first act we received, which is related to the topic of this article, is the “AI Act”. It was adopted at the beginning of December this year by the European Commission, which was also accepted by the members of the European Parliament, but we are still waiting for its adoption in order for it to formally become part of the law of the European Union.
There is no doubt that this is the great beginning of AI regulation, and that in the near future, certainly as early as 2024, we can expect new national and supranational laws, decrees and regulations that will deal with the issue of artificial intelligence both at the level of states and at the level of international organizations . We will not give ourselves the right to predict when the Republic of Serbia will pass the first AI law, but bearing in mind the considerable compatibility of our law with the law of the European Union, we are convinced that our legislator will not remain silent on this issue.
The Personal Data Protection Act prohibits any person from applying a decision that was made solely on the basis of automated processing, if that decision produces legal consequences for that person or that decision significantly affects his position. Although the law was passed in 2018, that is, before the expansion of artificial intelligence, although not explicitly, it seems that the legislator had in mind new technologies that will appear and that can be misused.
Also, one of the issues that arise is the issue of protection of users of financial and insurance services. Do banks and insurance companies, which already use sophisticated instruments, have the right and to what extent to use AI as a means of determining whether to grant a specific loan to a potential client or conclude an insurance policy with him. This issue is also addressed by the AI Act, bearing in mind that it encroaches on basic human rights, such as the right to housing, the right to health, the right to privacy, and so on. The economic crisis of 2008 hit and shook the entire financial sector, and this issue gained importance in the AI Act.
The issue that gives all lawyers a headache is the issue of intellectual skill and artificial intelligence rights. Currently, the most threatened are books and photos, programs, that is, their authors, but with the development of AI, many others will have to seek their rights before the competent institutions. How difficult it will be to prove that any person using the AI system or even the AI system itself has infringed your copyright remains to be seen, I would say in the near future. In the United States and the United Kingdom, several large-scale lawsuits have already been initiated against ChatGPT, OpenAI and other AI systems due to infringement of intellectual property rights. If you want to make history, and you suspect that someone stole what belongs exclusively to you through artificial intelligence, now is the right time.
Aleksandar Ilić, Senior Partner at IVVK in cooperation with LexQuire
E-mail: aleksandar.ilic@ivvk.rs
Nikola Stanimirović, Junior Associate at IVVK in cooperation with LexQuire
E-mail: nikola.stanimirovic@ivvk.rs