The European Union's Artificial Intelligence (AI) Act is set to be a landmark legal instrument for regulating AI technology. While stakeholders have primarily focused on the governance of fixed purpose AI applications (also known as narrow AI), more attention is required to understand the nature of highly and broadly capable systems. As of the beginning of 2023, several definitions for General Purpose AI Systems (GPAIS) exist in relation to the AI Act, attempting to distinguish between systems with and without a fixed purpose. In this article, we operationalise these differences through the concept of "distinct tasks" and examine four approaches (quantity, performance, adaptability, and emergence) to determine whether an AI system should be classified as a GPAIS. We suggest that EU stakeholders use the four approaches as a starting point to discriminate between fixed-purpose and GPAIS.

翻译：欧盟《人工智能法案》将成为监管人工智能技术具有里程碑意义的法律文书。尽管利益相关者主要关注固定用途人工智能应用（也称为狭义人工智能）的治理，但更需要理解具有高能力与广泛适用性的系统本质。截至2023年初，与《人工智能法案》相关的通用人工智能系统定义已出现多个版本，试图区分具有固定用途与无固定用途的系统。本文通过"不同任务"概念将这些差异操作化，并考察四种方法（数量、性能、适应性、涌现性）以判断人工智能系统是否应归类为通用人工智能系统。我们建议欧盟利益相关者将四种方法作为区分固定用途系统与通用人工智能系统的起点。