2026-04-17T03:36:40Zhttps://recercat.cat/oai/request
oai:recercat.cat:10230/718242025-11-13T18:26:33Zcom_2072_6col_2072_452952
RECERCAT author Fernández Llorca, David author Gómez Gutiérrez, Emilia, 1975- author Sánchez, Ignacio author Mazzini, Gabriele 2025-11-13T18:26:33Z 2025-11-13T18:26:33Z 2025-11-10T06:44:08Z2025-11-10T06:44:08Z2024 http://hdl.handle.net/10230/71824 Data de publicació electrònica: 09-08-2024The European Union’s Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act) is a groundbreaking regulatory framework that integrates technical concepts and terminology from the rapidly evolving ecosystems of AI research and innovation into the legal domain. Precise definitions accessible to both AI experts and lawyers are crucial for the legislation to be effective. This paper provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the concepts of AI system, general purpose AI system, foundation model and generative AI across the different versions of the legal text (Commission proposal, Parliament position and Council General Approach) before the final political agreement. The goal is to help bridge the understanding of these key terms between the technical and legal communities and contribute to a proper implementation of the AI Act. We provide an analysis of the concept of AI system considering its scientific foundation and the crucial role that it plays in the regulation, which requires a sound definition both from legal and technical standpoints. We connect the outcomes of this discussion with the analysis of the concept of general purpose AI system and its evolution during the negotiations. We also address the distinct conceptual meanings of AI system vs AI model and explore the technical nuances of the term foundation model. We conclude that rooting the definition of foundation model to its general purpose capabilities following standardised evaluation methodologies appears to be most appropriate approach. Lastly, we tackle the concept of generative AI, arguing that definitions of AI system that include “content” as one of the system’s outputs already captures it, and concluding that not all generative AI is based on foundation models. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess AI system AI model General purpose AI Generative AI Foundation models AI Act An interdisciplinary account of the terminological choices by EU policymakers ahead of the final agreement on the AI Act: AI system, general purpose AI system, foundation model, and generative AI info:eu-repo/semantics/article info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion