The EU AI Act: Between the rock of product safety and the hard place of fundamental rights

The European Union (EU) Artificial Intelligence Act (the AI Act) sets out a hybrid regulatory framework. The AI Act combines two classic traditions of EU law, namely product safety and fundamental rights protection. However, the proposed combination can fail if it does not account for the structural differences between the two legal traditions. This article uses three classical themes of the law and technology literature-the pacing problem, the regulatory lens, and institutional path dependence-to show why the AI Act's design creates practical and theoretical challenges that will need to be addressed during the Act's implementation and in future EU legislation.