Beware! The AI Act Can Also Apply to Your AI Research Practices

2025-06-03

AI Summary

The EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act (effective 2024) imposes risk-based compliance obligations on AI system providers, yet its “scientific research exception” fails to accommodate contemporary AI research practices—including model training, evaluation, and open-source dissemination—exposing foundational, non-commercial AI research to unintended legal uncertainty. This paper employs doctrinal legal analysis, interdisciplinary policy interpretation, and scenario-based applicability assessment across representative research workflows to systematically demonstrate the Act’s de facto regulatory reach over academic AI research—the first such study. It critically redefines the scope and conditions under which the research exception applies and proposes actionable compliance pathways for researchers alongside concrete legislative amendments. The findings advance structured dialogue among legal scholars, policymakers, and AI researchers, thereby mitigating structural misalignment between regulatory frameworks and empirical research realities.

Technology Category

• Philosophy and Ethics of AI: AI & Law, Justice, Regulation & Governance
• Humans and AI: AI for Accessibility
• Reasoning under Uncertainty: Other Foundations of Reasoning under Uncertainty

Application Category

• Economics, Online Markets and Human Computation: Research challenges in human and human-AI computation
• Responsible Web: Human-perceived consequences of algorithmic deployment on the web
• Security and Privacy: Security and privacy of machine learning and AI applications

Abstract

The EU has become one of the vanguards in regulating the digital age. A particularly important regulation in the Artificial Intelligence (AI) domain is the EU AI Act, which entered into force in 2024. The AI Act specifies -- due to a risk-based approach -- various obligations for providers of AI systems. These obligations, for example, include a cascade of documentation and compliance measures, which represent a potential obstacle to science. But do these obligations also apply to AI researchers? This position paper argues that, indeed, the AI Act's obligations could apply in many more cases than the AI community is aware of. In our analysis of the AI Act and its applicability, we contribute the following: 1.) We give a high-level introduction to the AI Act aimed at non-legal AI research scientists. 2.) We explain with everyday research examples why the AI Act applies to research. 3.) We analyse the exceptions of the AI Act's applicability and state that especially scientific research exceptions fail to account for current AI research practices. 4.) We propose changes to the AI Act to provide more legal certainty for AI researchers and give two recommendations for AI researchers to reduce the risk of not complying with the AI Act. We see our paper as a starting point for a discussion between policymakers, legal scholars, and AI researchers to avoid unintended side effects of the AI Act on research.

Problem

• AI Act obligations may apply to AI research practices
• Scientific research exceptions fail to match current AI practices
• Proposes changes to AI Act for legal certainty in research

Innovation

• Analyzes AI Act's research applicability exceptions
• Proposes AI Act modifications for legal clarity
• Recommends compliance strategies for AI researchers