The European Union's Human-Centric Approach to AI: Towards a Global Ethical Standard

This article examines the EU approach to artificial intelligence (AI). During the 2019–2024 legislature, the Union adopted the world's first binding horizontal AI regulation. The EU's High Level Expert Group on AI prepared the groundwork, culminating in Ethics Guidelines as well as Policy and Investment Recommendations for trustworthy AI. The EU considers its approach to be “human-centric” and wants to promote it as a global standard. It traces the genesis of the AI Act, analyses its provisions, evaluates its inherent political philosophy, and shows how it aligns with EU efforts to project a values-based identity. It examines the consultations underpinning the Ethics Guidelines and AI Act, in particular the role of “holders of values.” It maps religious contributions onto EU ethical standards, and presents evidence of the anthropological and theological debt the EU's human-centric AI owes to the concept of human dignity in religious traditions.