European Companies Claim the EU's AI Act Could 'Jeopardise Technological Sovereignty' (theverge.com) 15
Some of the biggest companies in Europe have taken collective action to criticize the European Union's recently approved artificial intelligence regulations, claiming that the Artificial Intelligence Act is ineffective and could negatively impact competition. From a report: In an open letter sent to the European Parliament, Commission, and member states on Friday, over 150 executives from companies like Renault, Heineken, Airbus, and Siemens slammed the AI Act for its potential to "jeopardise Europe's competitiveness and technological sovereignty." On June 14th, the European Parliament greenlit a draft of the AI Act following two years of developing its rules, and expanding them to encompass recent AI breakthroughs like large language AI models (LLMs) and foundation models, such as OpenAI's GPT-4. There are still several phases remaining before the new law can take effect, with the remaining inter-institutional negotiations expected to end later this year. The signatories of the open letter claim that the AI Act in its current state may suppress the opportunity AI technology provides for Europe to "rejoin the technological avant-garde." They argue that the approved rules are too extreme, and risk undermining the bloc's technological ambitions instead of providing a suitable environment for AI innovation.
the rules aren't extreme enough (Score:1, Informative)
generative AI is a massive risk at every level and it ignores its debts
Re: (Score:2)
And horseless buggies can spook horses.
Re: (Score:1)
"We need to clamp down on this."
NO!!!
WAHHH!!!
We have a RIGHT to possibly kill everyone in the world or poison humanity's understanding of the universe forever!
The cat is out of the bag... (Score:4, Insightful)
Regulators should realize the cat is out of the bag, and banning AI work will be like banning applied cryptography work in the 1990s (when France actually banned it for a few years until they came to their senses.) All it means that the enemy will have it and your guys don't.
Regulations can be useful, but outright bans are just going to mean that China, Russia, and Iran will be on the world stage, as the EU is slowly pushed to the wings.
Re: (Score:1)
Re:The cat is out of the bag... (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh please, this is not about a ban, have you read the text? [...] I'm in favor of the disengorgement of models that uses copyrighted and personal data without consent.
Preventing AI models from being trained on copyrighted data is not that different from a ban. It would be like telling human authors they can never read a copyrighted book because that experience could influence their writing. Someone utilizing an AI tool to create content should be bound by the same copyright laws as someone creating content without an AI tool. And the creation of the AI tool itself shouldn't be limited any more than a human creator is when learning their craft. Humans are not prevented from using copyrighted content to train themselves, so why would we restrict AI models in this way?
Re: (Score:2)
Because the current so-called "AI" are neither human nor sentient. We do not allow humans to download lots of copyrighted material and use it for whatever they want - there are restrictions on what humans are allowed to do with that material. One of those restrictions could be using it to train an "AI" language model. Even if what that system does is exactly identical to what a human w
Re: (Score:2)
If/when we get to the point where we start to question if our "AI" systems are sentient, then maybe we should explore their rights, but currently they are just tools that humans use, and we certainly can restrict the use of such tools.
Of course we can restrict copyrighted text further, and this has nothing to do with the rights of AI engines. Instead we should remember why copyright exists in the first place, and why the fair use doctrine was created. The ultimate goals of both are to create more creative works of art / literature by enhancing the profit motive for creators while allowing the use of these creative works for commentary, educational and research purposes so that future content creators can learn from the past.
Allowing AI t
Re: (Score:2)
Arguments could be made that the purpose of copyright has been demonstrated to be, not the furtherance of the creative arts, but rather the exploitation of those arts by powerful groups (ie. the continued erosion of the public domain), but that is an aside.
There have been lots of cases where copyright owners have restricted "future content creators" in their education, and researchers have been restricted in their ability to improve tools and techniques. You cannot (in general) copy stuff to look at later f
Re: (Score:2)
Can't agree with you on the copyrighted data aspect because:
1) That information is already given away freely.
2) AI doesn't break copyright law as like a human it creates new different works. Being against AI creating is some awful cry-baby thing, I can understand the likes of shutterstock not wanting AI to exist, but everyone else - what is going on in your head because the thinking is not explained.
3) Fuck copyright in it's current form, seriously it's just wrong, copyright should be temporary and should n
Pointing out the obvious (Score:2)
These companies seem to be pointing out the obvious, but it looks like they are just talking past each other. While the EU regulators could just be incompetent, I find it far more likely that their goal is to stifle AI development in the EU. The first post in this forum is an example of someone who simply wants generative AI research halted. I don't think there is any meaningful difference in opinion between the regulators and company executives about the result of this regulation, they simply disagree abou
They were begging for it last week (Score:2)
Heineken? (Score:2)