Reading the drafts of the AI Act with a technical lens

The draft AI Act is an effort led by European institutions to regulate the deployment and use of artificial intelligence.It is a notably difficult task, in part due to the polysemy of concepts such as artificial intelligence, covering topics such as foundational models, optimisation routines and rule-based models, among others.Furthermore, it gives a prism by which we can observe the wide variety of stakes different actors are pushing for. After an initial draft proposed by the Commission in 2021, the European Commission, Council and Parliament will now discuss and draft the final version as part of the trilogue phase.The existence of these three versions gives us a chance to understand the negociations happening between the different European institutions, and as such is an interesting look into the currents that shape the artificial intelligence ecosystem. In this paper we focus on the Commission, Council and Parliament proposals for the Act, and read them with a technical lens.In particular, we examine the technical concepts mobilized in the Act, and contextualize them in the wider sociotechnical environment surrounding artificial intelligence. For each main concept, we make a comparative analysis of each version, highlighting their differences and their impact.This paper is primarily geared towards computer scientists, data analysts and machine learning researchers, in order to clarify the tenets and decisions made in the current versions of the act.