Professor Gregory O'Hare:

I remind the Deputy that the EU AI Act has been in gestation for quite some time. My understanding is there have been delays associated with it. It is hardly surprising given the set of circumstances that have occurred quite recently, which is bombarding that particular framing and construction of a very complex Act with an ever-fast moving landscape. That will continue. The velocity, as I referred to earlier, is remarkable and my understanding is that the crafting of any law that is to be worth its weight is a timely process. What we probably will see is a legislative framework that will attempt to anticipate future developments and that will potentially result in a legislative framework that is so generic that it might be difficult to enforce.

Deputy Bruton asked earlier how might we legislate for this or how can we control it. I will give the committee one example of something that happened in and around the deep fake space. For those members of the committee who are less aware, this is artificial construction and morphing of imagery, and seeding it into the Internet, for example, images that are patently not true such as the Pope in a white puffa jacket. There has been a movement to try and address that where the leading tech companies have come together to try and see another way whereby we could have some certification of images that are seeded into the Internet. Companies, such as Adobe and Microsoft, have shared their intellectual and technical power bases. We are starting to move to a situation whereby images that are verifiable, accurate and bona fide will have a little icon in the top right-hand corner and someone can click on this icon and establish the provenance of that particular image. We need to move towards something that has that kind of certification and provenance opportunity, not merely for imagery but for every kind of content that is seeded into the Internet. How we get there is a considerable challenge.