AI Vocabulary · 08 Rules & Responsibility
What is High-Risk AI System?
AI used in sensitive areas like hiring, credit or education, which faces the strictest EU rules.
Under the EU AI Act, some uses of AI are classed as high-risk because mistakes can seriously affect people's lives, safety or rights. Listed areas include employment (for example screening applicants or evaluating staff), education (for example grading or admissions), access to essential services such as credit, critical infrastructure, law enforcement, migration and justice. AI that is a safety component of certain regulated products also counts.
Providers of high-risk systems must meet strict requirements: risk management, data quality, documentation, logging, accuracy and human oversight. Organisations that deploy them also have duties, such as using them as instructed, assigning trained people to oversee them and monitoring how they work.
Why it matters for you
A general-purpose tool can become part of a high-risk use depending on what you do with it. Using an AI assistant to write emails is not high-risk; using it to rank job applicants may well be. The use decides, not the tool.
Own it
Before you let AI influence decisions about people, check whether the use falls into a high-risk area. If it does, slow down, involve legal advice and build in oversight and evals from the start. This entry is an overview, not legal advice.
Where it comes from
The idea of regulating AI by risk level comes from the European Commission's 2020 White Paper on AI, which proposed strict rules only where stakes are high. The EU AI Act turned this into law: high-risk areas such as employment, education and credit are listed in its Annex III, and the Commission can update that list as technology and uses change.
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