Over the past decade, we have witnessed an unprecedented acceleration in the development and deployment of artificial intelligence (AI) systems, driven by advances in computational power, the increasing availability of big data, and breakthroughs in machine learning, particularly deep learning. This exponential growth has heightened ethical challenges of AI use related to fairness, bias, transparency, accountability, privacy, and human agency. These values are reflected in the legal framework of the rules of the Act on AI, a Regulation adopted by the EU in June 2024. In its final wording, the Act on AI requires all AI system providers to comply not only with rules containing duties and prohibitions, but also with a set of ethical principles. They include: 1) human agency and oversight, 2) technical robustness and security, 3) privacy protection and data governance, 4) transparency, 5) diversity, non-discrimination, and fairness, 6) societal and environmental well-being, and 7) accountability. Using comparative and historical methods, this study focuses on these ethical principles on which the creators of the EU Act on AI based their legislative work. Subsequently, an analysis is performed as to the anticipated impact of these principles during the implementation of the new EU legal framework. In this context, the question of why the development of ethical AI is important as a condition for trustworthy AI is discussed. In the conclusion, it formulates tasks for future research.