Report from the Financial Times
In Brief – European Members of Parliament (MEPs) who played leading roles crafting the EU’s AI Act are urging the European Commission to reject attempts to reduce the mandates imposed on the developers of the largest general AI systems. The warning letter to Commission digital chief Henna Virkkunen comes as the Code of Practice for General-Purpose AI is being developed in a process guided by the EU AI Office that includes expert group drafting committees and officials from member state governments and the commission. The MEPs argue that the latest draft code proposes that some regulatory requirements for the largest general AI system providers would be voluntary rather than mandatory, including on important measures addressing risks such as the spread of violent and false content, and interference in democratic processes. The lawmakers say that such changes were “never the intention of the trilogue agreement” and that narrowing a legal text through a Code of Practice is “dangerous, undemocratic and creates legal uncertainty.”
Context – The AI Act was initially designed as a tiered risk-based regulatory regime for applications using AI technology, not an attempt to regulate AI technology itself. But the EU Parliament changed course in response to the emergence of Chat-GPT and chose to regulate large “foundation models” such as the biggest chatbots. This shift was divisive and EU-based AI innovators pushed for lesser mandates. The compromise applied fewer mandates to developers of smaller models, which included the EU-based leaders, but more on larger developers. Yes, the EU planted the flag globally for AI regulation, but that is not without risk. The US, UK, and Japan have each shifted their AI policies in a deregulatory direction since last year. At the recent Paris AI summit, French President Macron called for the EU to “resynchronize with the rest of the world” and Virkkunen said that the Commission will be business-friendly in implementing its new rules. Don’t get distracted by talk of a US v EU standoff. It is an intra-EU disagreement over how best to incentivize investment and innovation to achieve both growth and safety.