The EU wants to put companies on the hook for harmful AI

At first, I didn’t see why that requires new laws. If a company’s AI harmed you, that company harmed you and that should be enough for the company to be liable.

AFAIK, companies never have been able to hide behind “the computer did it”.

Reading the directive (https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/default/files/1_1_197605_pro...) explains the need for new law

“Current national liability rules, in particular based on fault, are not suited to handling liability claims for damage caused by AI-enabled products and services. Under such rules, victims need to prove a wrongful action or omission by a person who caused the damage. The specific characteristics of AI, including complexity, autonomy and opacity (the so-called “black box” effect), may make it difficult or prohibitively expensive for victims to identify the liable person and prove the requirements for a successful liability claim. In particular, when claiming compensation, victims could incur very high up-front costs and face significantly longer legal proceedings, compared to cases not involving AI. Victims may therefore be deterred from claiming compensation altogether.”

It also is noteworthy that this directive claims this will help increase the use of AI because

“If a victim brings a claim, national courts, faced with the specific characteristics of AI, may adapt the way in which they apply existing rules on an ad hoc basis to come to a just result for the victim. This will cause legal uncertainty. Businesses will have difficulties to predict how the existing liability rules will be applied, and thus to assess and insure their liability exposure.”

So, basically, the aim of this is to make it clearer what is allowed and what isn’t, and to harmonize that across the EU.

Isn't it already illegal to harm people? Not sure why AI is specifically singled out. What about quantum computers, other emerging tech? Seems like a dangerous precedent. Hard for me to believe politicians have the technical competence to police such matters effectively.

>The AI Act would require extra checks

Extra "checks" by whom, and what are they "checking" for? There's a lot of hand-waving in this.