Comment by BjoernKW | Hacker News Reader

Comment by BjoernKW | Hacker News Reader

Parent Full thread

> I attended a conference on the AI Act

I find it quite baffling that there's even such a thing as an entire conference on a specific law.

> Regulation is intended to be strongest in a quite narrow set of use cases explicitly defined as high-risk.

Intention vs. implementation always seems to be a major issue with EU legislation.

They always claim that these regulations are supposed to target "large companies" or a small number of cases, yet in reality it's usually the small companies and entrepreneurs that suffer while the supposed target audience of large players scoffs at these laws.

Hence, I consider these claims to be outright lies intended to calm people down while the EU continues to collude with incumbents to further entrench their dominant position and smother any kind of change or innovation.

> GDPR will have been more 'disruptive' in practice than the AI Act for the vast majority of developers

Relevant EU representatives at the time claimed there not just wasn't any disruption due to GDPR, but that this regulation would even even spark innovation.

Well, that turned out nicely ...

The EU commissioner responsible literally claimed she could implement all GDPR requirements for a public website herself in a matter of just a few minutes. These people are as arrogant as they are clueless.

> I find it quite baffling that there's even such a thing as an entire conference on a specific law.

The AI Act is a big set of legislation which is interesting and impactful. Why would we not set dedicated time aside to talk about it? I think it would be more baffling if we didn't.

As a developer in the EU having had to consider GDPR in our systems, I support GDPR and believe sometimes disruption is needed to safeguard individuals' interests. Similarly, as an AI developer in the EU I personally support the idea of regulating defined high-risk use cases of AI.

> The AI Act is a big set of legislation which is interesting and impactful. Why would we not set dedicated time aside to talk about it?

Well, in other parts of the world you have people talking about progress and how to advance the human species while in the EU we have people talking about how to regulate every minute detail of human life. You can't get any more telling than that.

> I support GDPR and believe sometimes disruption is needed to safeguard individuals' interests.

GDPR has completely failed at that. Individuals' interests and privacy are worse off than they were before GDPR.

Small companies are burdened with byzantine rules that achieve nothing to improve users' privacy while the worst offenders - large conglomerates and authorities - simply don't care. The latter are largely exempt from GDPR anyway while the former have huge legal departments to deal with GDPR as they see fit.

> Well, in other parts of the world you have people talking about progress and how to advance the human species while in the EU we have people talking about how to regulate every minute detail of human life. You can't get any more telling than that.

This is a kind of strange take. Do you think conference topics are mutually exclusive? I assure you no other conferences on a multitude of interesting subjects were harmed in the making of a one-day AI Act conference.

You're not really providing any concrete examples of GDPR failing, so there's not much there to respond to. I've used the right to erasure and right of access successfully and automatically opt out of trackers when browsing, which for me is a benefit.

> This is a kind of strange take. Do you think conference topics are mutually exclusive?

To some extent they are, yes.

First, it's about what people spend their time and focus on. If you're focussing on regulating, there's less time you can spend on innovating.

Then, some of that regulation actually precludes innovation in certain areas. So, by establishing the premise that regulation is justified by organising a conference on it, you're delegitimising discussion on the kind of innovation that regulation attempts to prevent.

> You're not really providing any concrete examples of GDPR failing, so there's not much there to respond to.

GDPR was - allegedly - targeted at the likes of Facebook or TikTok, which to my knowledge do very little to implement GDPR in a way that's conducive to user privacy.

At the same time, everyone running a tiny website has to put in enormous effort to implement that regulation, because otherwise authorities might come for them through ruinous fines.

Yes, this does happen, particularly because in some EU countries (Germany being the worst offender) it's so easy to impose fines on small businesses at scale, this literally has become a business model for authorities and law firms.

Regulation of harmful use cases of new technologies is very justified, as is understanding it. In the same city we've had plenty of conferences and lectures on AI innovations - some of those talks taking place during the AI Act conference itself.

I am very glad the rights GDPR gives me are applicable to more than just Facebook and TikTok.

It seems like our views on institutional actors' responsibilities to protect individuals' rights and interests are just inherently misaligned - as are our views on subjects worthy of organized discussion/exploration. Thanks for the interesting conversation!

Reply on news.ycombinator.com