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EU AI Act
The European Union's 2024 regulatory framework for artificial intelligence — the most comprehensive formal institutional response to the AI transition, whose <em>risk-based classification system</em> and uncertain <em>adaptive efficiency</em> represent one pole of contemporary AI governance approaches.
The EU AI Act (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689), finalized in 2024 and entering force progressively through 2025–2026, represents the most comprehensive formal institutional response to the AI transition of any major jurisdiction. The Act establishes a risk-based classification system distinguishing unacceptable-risk AI (prohibited outright), high-risk AI (subject to extensive requirements), limited-risk AI (subject to transparency obligations), and minimal-risk AI (largely unregulated). It imposes requirements on high-risk systems including risk management, data governance, documentation, human oversight, accuracy, and cybersecurity. It creates enforcement mechanisms through national competent authorities coordinated through an AI Office at the European level. From the perspective of North's institutional economics, the Act represents both the strengths and the characteristic risks of comprehensive formal regulation: it provides the structural constraint that inclusive institutional design requires while simultaneously risking the path-dependent brittleness that rapid technological change punishes.
In The You On AI Field Guide
The Act's risk-based classification is analytically sophisticated. Rather than attempting to regulate AI uniformly, it tailors requirements
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