AI ethics in practice: why Europe needs more than the AI Act, according to a new Euractiv piece

[Grim Callum]

A recent Euractiv opinion piece argues that the EU AI Act, despite being the world's first comprehensive AI law, is not sufficient on its own to guarantee really ethical AI outcomes across Europe, since legal compliance and actual ethical practice are related but distinctly different things. The argument lands at a notable moment, with the Act's main obligations for high risk AI systems having become enforceable on August 2 this year, even as a separate Digital Omnibus package has already pushed some of the toughest Annex III requirements back to December 2027.

The core tension the piece identifies is a familiar one from other regulated industries. A checklist based compliance regime, however well designed, inevitably creates incentives to satisfy the letter of specific documented requirements rather than the broader underlying ethical intent behind them. Organizations can build technically compliant AI systems, complete with the required conformity assessments, risk management documentation, and human oversight provisions, that still produce actually harmful or unfair outcomes in practice if the actual organizational culture around AI development treats ethics as a paperwork exercise rather than a substantive ongoing commitment.

That gap matters more given how much discretion remains built into the Act's actual implementation. National competent authorities are still being designated in several member states even as enforcement powers have already technically begun, and the AI Office's own guidance documents continue evolving in response to real world edge cases regulators didn't fully anticipate when the law was originally drafted. A framework this new, still being actively interpreted and refined in real time, inevitably leaves meaningful room for organizations to satisfy formal requirements while missing the actual spirit those requirements were designed to serve in the first place.

The piece's broader argument is that genuine AI ethics requires embedding ethical consideration directly into an organization's actual development culture and decision making processes, not just its formal legal compliance function sitting somewhere in a legal or risk department. That means practical steps like diverse teams actually reviewing AI systems before deployment, meaningful mechanisms for affected communities to raise concerns and have them heard, and genuine internal accountability structures that operate independently of whatever the bare legal minimum happens to currently require. Regulation sets an important floor, according to this framing, but treating that floor as the actual ceiling of ethical ambition is exactly the trap Europe needs to avoid as AI Act enforcement continues maturing over the next several years

Ai Ethics In Practice Why Europe Needs More Than The Ai Actwww.euractiv.com