Written by: Haim Ravia, Dotan Hammer
Latin America’s smallest country, El Salvador, became the first country in the region to enact a law on Artificial Intelligence. The recently enacted Ley De Fomento A Inteligencia Artificial Y Tecnologías takes a novel approach, focusing on the creation of a developer-friendly regulatory ecosystem rather than limiting AI uses.
The Act seeks to make El Salvador attractive to AI developers. Beyond requiring the government to fund educational and training programs in the country, the Act also assigns intellectual property in AI products and their outputs to developers, and limits developers’ liability. For example, developers will have limited liability for research and development activities and no liability when their AI tools are misused by third parties outside El Salvador.
The developer-friendly safeguards are contingent on making reasonable efforts to ensure security and ethical standards, which include equity, transparency, responsibility, informed consent, data minimization, inclusion, and non-discrimination. Finally, the developers must register AI systems in a national registry.
The Act also establishes a national AI Agency (ANIA) to promote and foster AI development. Its responsibilities include coordinating and supervising compliance, establishing technical assistance programs, managing the national AI registry, and issuing related regulations.
Click here to read the full text of the Act (in Spanish).
