AI and the law: the rules that reach ordinary users
The EU AI Act, copyright and the duties that land on ordinary businesses and users. General information in plain English, with the parts that matter to you separated from the parts that do not.
Most AI law is aimed at the companies building and selling these systems, but parts of it reach ordinary users and small employers: the disclosure notices you now see, the question of what you are allowed to publish, and the duties that land on a business the moment it uses software to screen people. What follows is general information about those rules in plain English, not legal advice about your own situation.
The EU rules for general purpose models explain the obligations sitting on the providers behind your chatbot, and why certain labels and documents appeared. The high risk category is the part that can catch an ordinary employer, because hiring, credit and education uses are named in it. Copyright covers the question everyone asks: what training on published work means, and whether you own what a model produced for you.
If your real concern is what a particular company holds about you rather than what the law requires of it, the requests you can make about your own data are a faster route to an answer than any regulation.
Articles in this hub
- The EU AI Act and general purpose models, in plain EnglishWhat the EU AI Act asks of general purpose AI model providers, the transparency and copyright duties, and what it means for a business that only uses these models.
- High risk AI under the EU AI Act: what counts and what it requiresWhich AI uses the EU AI Act treats as high risk, the duties that follow for providers and deployers, and the prohibited practices nobody may use at all.
- AI and copyright: training, output and what you can publishThree separate copyright questions AI raises, where the law is settled and where it is not, and the practical rules for publishing AI assisted work.