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Ask HN: Is it even worth selling to Europeans given the new AI regulations?
For my sins, I am an EdTech founder building an AI grading platform. We're increasingly finding European customers asking for bundles of documentation to prove safety/efficacy of our platform.
Looking in to the EU AI Act as a few customers have mentioned it and the burden is collosal. We're a team of 10 and don't have capacity to shift to bureaucracy. Genuinely considering avoiding european sales if this becomes a hard requirement.
Anyone have experience navigating the new compliance reqs / know good platforms for compliance automation?
- yaseenhalabi 1y ago[dead]
- BenJacob1 1y agoThanks for sharing, think the assessment tool on there says it all - not many edtech players can avoid the arm of heavy regulation here.
- jdjohnson2 1y agoDo Europeans actually care about this? Even the EU typically only makes examples of larger companies. Will the main driver for change be commercial pressure (e.g. OP's buyers saying they need evidence of their AI being fair, safe, etc.) or regulatory? I think the former, which is a bit of a shame. But maybe the regulations on larger companies stoke the discussion and start a culture shift - like with GDPR
- BenJacob1 1y agoI don't see how they can feasibly enforce on every tech business in the world selling in to the EU. Given that's the case, suspect they can only afford to divert resources to go after big tech. But that doesn't stop customers wanting to cover themselves for the liability (which is totally understandable)
- binarymax 1y agoCan you blame them? To me, an AI grading platform for children seems like it should be regulated.
- BenJacob1 1y agoMy gripe isn’t “no regulation,” it’s the shape of this one for teams in a sector that’s already stretched. Some of these requirements are so high burden that it will add 10% to our OpEx e.g. data governance/provenance reqs: document sources, bias reviews, copyright posture, retention + redoing this after every model change; quality management system across the company (policies, roles, training, audits); conformity assessment + CE marking, with a third-party review all of which will be costly and slow. I’m all for protecting students. But in practice this shifts months of team time and serious cash into paperwork before schools even pilot the tool. Big incumbents can eat that but small teams either raise prices, slow down, or skip the EU. That’s the innovation tax I’m worried about especially when schools need better tools now.
- binarymax 1y agoSure. This seems a cultural difference between US and EU. I've lived extensively in both. EU is known to be burdensome in terms of tech regulations. Normally I find this egregious. However when children are involved I am far more tolerant of their requirements. 10% OpEx overhead to make sure children are protected seems entirely reasonable to me. If you're not prepared to meet their requirements then skip the EU.
- quantified 1y agoSeconding this. If you're just a team of 10, you are way too small to take on the responsibility of the thing you're trying to provide. I shudder to think of the educational quality a team of ten will provide to hundreds of thousands of schoolchildren in thousands of different schools. You're too small for the less-regulated US. Add people to deal with things.
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- lordkrandel 1y agoYes, AI deals with sensitive informations, and no one has an idea what it stores about it or what will be done with it. Heavy regulations here. Barriers to making profit by exploiting people and their data. That's the EU. A frontier of freedom and freedom costs. You can have your business in the non-free US where you are a puppet of your tech bro guys. Leave what you don't understand alone.