The European Parliament gave final approval on Wednesday to sweeping the European Union (EU) rules governing artificial intelligence, including powerful systems like ChatGPT.

Senior EU officials say the rules, first proposed in 2021, will protect citizens from the potential risks of technology that is developing at breakneck speed, while also boosting innovation on the continent.

Brussels has rushed to pass the new law since Microsoft-backed ChatGPT arrived on the scene in late 2022, kicking off the global AI race.

There has been an explosion of excitement for generative artificial intelligence as ChatGPT wowed the world with its human-like abilities, from digesting complex text to creating songs within seconds or passing doctoral exams.

Further examples of generative AI models include DALL-E and Midjourney, which produce images, while other models produce sounds from simple everyday language input.

The far-reaching regulation was adopted with the support of 523 members of the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France, while 46 voted against.

The 27 EU states are expected to approve the text in April before the law is published in the EU’s Official Journal in May or June.