Will the EU Use an AI Agent to Automate Fines?
June 10, 2025
Just a dinobaby and no AI: How horrible an approach?
Apple, at least to date, has not demonstrated adeptness in lashing smart software to its super secure and really user friendly system. How many times do I have to dismiss “log in to iCloud” and “log in to Facetime”? How frequently will Siri wander in dataspace? How often do I have to dismiss “two factor authentication” for the old iPad I use to read Kindle books? How often? The answer is, “As many times as the European Union will fine the company for failure to follow its rules, guidelines, laws, and special directives.
I read “EU Ruling: Apple’s App Store Still in Violation of DMA, 30 Days to Comply” and I really don’t know what Apple has blown off. I vaguely recall that the company ignored a US court order in the US. However, the EU is not the US, and the EU can make quite miserable for the company, its employees residing in the EU, and its contractors with primary offices in member countries. The tools can be trivial: A bit of friction at international airports. The machinery can be quite Byzantine when financial or certification activities can be quite entertaining to an observer.
The write up says:
Following its initial €500 million fine in April, the European Commission is now giving Apple 30 days to fully align its App Store rules with the Digital Markets Act (DMA). If it fails to comply, the EU says it will start imposing “periodic penalty payments” until Apple [follows the rules]…
For me, the operative word is “periodic.” I think it means a phenomenon that repeats at regular intervals of time. Okay, a fine like the most recent €500 would just occur in a heart beat fashion. One example would be every month. After one year, the fines total €6,000,000,000. What happens if the EU gets frisky after a bottle of French burgundy from a very good year? The fine would be levied for each day in a calendar year and amount to €2,190,000,000,000 or two trillion one hundred ninety billion euros. Even for a high flier like Apple and its pilot Tim Apple, stakeholders might suggest, “Just obey the law, please.”
I wonder if the EU might consider using Telegram bots to automate the periodic fines. The system developed by France’s favorite citizen Pavel Durov is robust, easily extensible, and essentially free. The “FineApple_bot” could fire on a schedule and message Tim Apple, his Board of Directors, the other “leadership” of Apple, and assorted news outlets. The free service operates quickly enough for most users, but by paying a nominal monthly fee, the FineApple_bot could issues 1,000 instructions a second. But that’s probably overkill unless the EU decides to fine Apple by the minute. In case you were wondering the annual fine would be in the neighborhood of €52,560,000,000,000 (or fifty-two trillion five hundred sixty billion euros).
My hunch is that despite Apple’s cavalier approach to court orders, some less intransigent professional in the core of Apple would find a way to resolve the problem. But I personally quite like the Telegram bot approach.
Stephen E Arnold, June 10, 2025
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