Artificial Intelligence: The giants have turned their backs on the European Union – 2024-09-30 23:20:28

A European Union initiative to speed up control measures on artificial intelligence got off to a rocky start on Wednesday, as the giants simply did not want to participate.

The EU Artificial Intelligence Pact it lists non-binding obligations that pre-empt some of the binding rules that industries will face under the EU AI Act in the coming years. The Pact initiative was launched by former EU Digital Policy Commissioner Thierry Breton, who resigned from his post earlier this month after clashing with President Ursula von der Leyen.

Both Meta and Apple were not included in the list of signatories presented Wednesday, hours before the Pact officially launched at EU headquarters in Brussels, Politico reports. France’s Mistral was also not among the signatories, nor were video-sharing platform TikTok or Anthropic, a leading American artificial intelligence company.

Artificial intelligence and politics

The failure to win support from some of the technology leaders developing cutting-edge AI models shows how governments, including the EU, are still grappling with how to impose direct controls on the fast-growing AI market, despite strong warnings from of the last two years that it poses serious risks to the world.

It also signaled, Politico reports, a shift in sentiment among some tech companies in their support for regulatory controls on artificial intelligence. A campaign led by Meta this month warned that “in recent times, regulatory decision-making has become fragmented and unpredictable” and that the EU is at risk of missing out on specific technology that could “spike productivity”.

Notably, tech companies including Meta, X and others have held back on launching AI products in Europe after spats with Ireland’s Data Protection Commissioner, who enforces Europe’s powerful privacy rulebook, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), to many large technology companies with regional headquarters in the country.

Apple also decided not to launch new AI-powered features on its latest iPhone model in Europe due to regulatory concerns.

“Ice” after the Breton withdrawal

The Artificial Intelligence Pact was signed by a total of 115 companies at its launch on Wednesday, the European Commission announced. Among them were Germany’s Aleph Alpha, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, OpenAI and Palantir, as well as a number of other European and global companies following these big players in the development of artificial intelligence.

The EU’s executive body previously said more than a thousand companies had expressed interest in the Pact.

This Pact was the brainchild of former EU Commissioner for Digital Technology Thierry Breton, who resigned in mid-Septemberafter von der Leyen pressured the French government to withdraw his candidacy for a second term in the EU, Politico reports.

The Accord had lost ground before its launch, partly because of Breton’s resignation and also because of vigorous industry campaigns that argued that Europe’s laws and regulations were holding the continent back in AI. Former Italian Prime Minister Mario Draghi raised similar concerns in his recent report on Europe’s competitive position in the world.

With many European Commissioners outside Brussels on Wednesday, the event to launch the Agreement was led by Lucilla Cioli, head of the European Union’s Office of Artificial Intelligence.

All companies and industries will have to comply with the rules listed in the Agreement under the EU Artificial Intelligence Act, which is gradually being developed over the coming years. The aim of the voluntary Compact was to bring companies into early compliance with the rules of the Artificial Intelligence Act.