What are the four primary risk categories defined by the EU AI Act?

• A. Unacceptable Risk, High Risk, Limited Risk, Minimal Risk
• B. Critical Risk, High Risk, Moderate Risk, Low Risk
• C. Unacceptable, High, Moderate, Minimal
• D. Severe Risk, High Risk, Limited Risk, Negligible

Answer: (A)

The EU AI Act classifies AI systems into four risk categories: Unacceptable Risk, High Risk, Limited Risk, and Minimal Risk. Unacceptable Risk covers uses that are deemed clearly harmful or unacceptable and are prohibited, such as certain types of social scoring by public authorities or real-time biometric identification in public spaces. High Risk includes systems with significant safety or fundamental rights concerns, like critical infrastructure control, employment decisions, or high-stakes credit scoring, and these require strict safeguards and oversight. Limited Risk encompasses systems that involve some transparency obligations, meaning users should be informed they are interacting with AI and may have limited controls. Minimal Risk covers the broad set of AI applications with minimal or no additional requirements beyond general compliance. The other options introduce terms not used in the regulation, such as Critical Risk or Severe Risk, which do not reflect the four formal categories.