On 4 February 2025, the European Commission approved the Guidelines on the application of Art. 5 of Regulation (EU) 2024/1689 on Artificial Intelligence (AI act).
That standard includes, among the prohibited AI practices, the placing on the market, putting into service or using AI systems using subliminal techniques or intentionally manipulating or misleading techniques with the purpose or effect of distorting a person’s behavior, by inducing such person to make a decision he/she would not otherwise have made (art. 5.1.a, AI act).
This ban may be applied in particular in the advertising sector.
Advertising must not only be truthful in its content, but must also be recognizable as such by the consumer. This second requirement may be missing if the promotional message is produced using subliminal techniques, which act outside the awareness threshold of the recipient and lead to choices that the recipient would not otherwise have made.
The guidelines provide a list of prohibited techniques, including visual subliminal messages (which appear too fast for the brain to record) and audio messages (transmitted at too low volumes or masked by other sounds), systems that focus users on certain content to prevent others from being perceived, as well as images hidden by other images.
