1. The following AI practices shall be prohibited:
the placing on the market, the putting into service or the use of an AI system that exploits any of the vulnerabilities of a natural person or a specific group of persons due to their age, disability or a specific social or economic situation, with the objecti ve, or the effect, of materially distorting the behaviour of that person or a person belonging to that group in a manner that causes or is reasonably likely to cause that person or another person significant harm;
Several cumulative conditions must be fulfilled for the prohibition in Article 5(1)(b) AI Act to apply:
The practice must constitute the ‘placing on the market’,the ‘putting into service’, or the ‘use’ of an AI system.
The AI system must exploit vulnerabilities due to age, disability, or soci al or economic situations.
The exploitation enabled by the AI system must have the objective, or the effect of materially distorting the behaviour of a person or a group of persons.
The distorted behaviour must cause or be reasonably likely to cause significant harm to that person, another person, or a group of persons.
For the prohibition to apply all four conditions must be simultaneously fulfilled and there must be a plausible causal link between the exploitation, the material distortion of the behaviour of the person, and the significant harm that has resulted, or is reasonably likely to result, from that behaviour.
The first condition, i.e. the‘placing on the market’,the ‘putting into service’ orthe ‘use’ of an AI system , has been already analysed in section 2.3., while the third and fourth conditions have been examined in sections 3.2.2. and 3.2.3. in relation tothe prohibition in Article 5(1) (a) AI Act . The next sections will focus on the additional specific conditions listed above , i.e. those that relate to the exploitation of the vulnerabilities and the specific harm.