Meta Warns EU Regulatory Efforts Risk Bloc Missing Out on AI Advances 35
Meta has warned that the EU's approach to regulating AI is creating the "risk" that the continent is cut off from accessing cutting-edge services, while the bloc continues its effort to rein in the power of Big Tech. From a report: Rob Sherman, the social media group's deputy privacy officer and vice-president of policy, confirmed a report that it had received a request from the EU's privacy watchdog to voluntarily pause the training of its future AI models on data in the region. He told the Financial Times this was in order to give local regulators time to "get their arms around the issue of generative AI." While the Facebook owner is adhering to the request, Sherman said such moves were leading to a "gap in the technologies that are available in Europe versus" the rest of the world. He added that, with future and more advanced AI releases, "it's likely that availability in Europe could be impacted." Sherman said: "If jurisdictions can't regulate in a way that enables us to have clarity on what's expected, then it's going to be harder for us to offer the most advanced technologies in those places ... it is a realistic outcome that we're worried about."
Meta pulls it's Mafia move (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Meta pulls it's Mafia move (Score:4, Funny)
EU response: "Bring it, motherfuckers. You want another fine?"
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elites in europe are somewhat more restraint and politically correct than say in the us or asia. this is cultural and modulates the political discourse and has its perks, but make no mistake, it's just a pose, it can (and will) break at any moment and they will show their true faces (that's ofc metaphoric).
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ding ding ding
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Yup, Meta[stasize], the world's biggest privacy rapist, it up to its usual bully games.
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It's almost the opposite. "It would be a shame if you weren't using our defective products!" It could lead to the rare situation where America is jealous of Europe's freedom from AI :-)
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Oh please.
Normally I'm in the "fuck FaceBook in the ass with a large rusty spear" train - but in this case, yeah, no. Fuck the EU with that large rusty spear.
Re: Meta pulls it's Mafia move (Score:1)
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Being told I'd miss out on AI would have the opposite effect I think Meta would have intended. At least for me I guess. As I wouldn't want any part of it, and I'd thank them for keeping it away. hehe ;-)
Hey (Score:2)
How come AI can do anything except help someone find a job?
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Yeah, I just asked ChatGPT to pay my broadband cable bill and it didn't. Maybe I can get it to clean the cat box? Nope, won't do that either. Laundry needs washing, perhaps it's able to do something about that? Nada on that, too. Figuring that I've already tried asking Alexa to fix me a sandwich and know how that goes, I'm not even going to bother with that one.
AI sucks.
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"Sudo, Alexa make me a sandwich."
"can't regulate in a way that enables us ..." (Score:5, Insightful)
"If jurisdictions can't regulate in a way that enables us to have clarity on what's expected, "
Fair enough, EU legislation is convoluted and perhaps overly conservative at times. So far and oddly enough, big tech has always managed to comply though.
The more likely subtext here is "If jurisdictions can't regulate in a way that enables us to ride roughshod over consumers, producers and citizens' data ..."
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The biggest problems with the EU are three-fold:
1). EU regulations have become moving targets. Save harbor? Privacy Shield? GDPR? Whatever's next? Make up your goddamned minds, people.
2). They are unevenly and unfairly enforced. Who are we always reading about the EU targeting the likes of Apple, Facebook, Amazon, et cetera. Where are the "x% of all global revenue" threats and actions against the likes of Airbus/EADS, Nokia, Royal Dutch Shell, and the like?
3). The regulations are often ambiguously wo
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The regulations are often ambiguously worded. So instead of a clear and concise set of specific rules that they can follow
this alone explains everything else. right to privacy is important to the populace in europe, and legislators want to appease the populace, and see the opportunity to milk huge companies. the problem is that they're a bunch of greedy clueless bureaucrats so all you get is word salad and fines.
you know who legislates in europe: the worst of mediocre politicians who can't get an office or seat in their own countries. it's negative selection of an already negatively selected population at its best.
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Exploitive and corrupt business entities that game the system change their rules in an instant and very often they lie about what they did.
Your whine about unfair regulation is an endorsement of typical predatory business operations.
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1). EU regulations have become moving targets. Save harbor? Privacy Shield? GDPR? Whatever's next? Make up your goddamned minds, people.
Literally every country in the world has regulations which a moving targets. If that weren't the case you wouldn't need a legislative branch of government. Also there are no moving targets. The regulations you list are basically unchanged from inception. It sounds like you just don't like that they existed, but worth noting that none of them came into effect on they day of passing the law. They all had very VERY generous implementation periods, so cry me a river $1.239 trillion company.
2). They are unevenly and unfairly enforced. Who are we always reading about the EU targeting the likes of Apple, Facebook, Amazon, et cetera. Where are the "x% of all global revenue" threats and actions against the likes of Airbus/EADS, Nokia, Royal Dutch Shell, and the like?
No they aren't. Not i
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1. Yes, that's what legislators and regulators do. They update things as the landscape changes, EU regs are a mixed bag--some are really good and best in the world, some are ill-thought out or not enforced properly as you mentioned
2. The only US companies that have any real large foothold abroad are your tech companies.
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In the case of the DMA, however, Big Tech was complaining about their inability to understand what it actually required years ago (to the point that there were a lot of jokes along the lines of "gee, Apple, it's a shame you need to submit your work for review before you find out whether it was rejected by the App Store review process...I mean EU regulators"), even before it was passed into law, so this isn't exactly a new issue. The only difference is that it's now in effect and causing problems for everyon
EL OH EL (Score:3)
This sounds to us mere mortals like a supervillain saying to the protagonist: "Let me do the scary thing today, so that you can participate in the much scarier thing we plan on building tomorrow." Maybe AI innovation will pay off in some grand, illustrious, imaginary future, but right now it's bullshit stacked on top of bullshit stacked on top of what the fuck, and the only "positive" that can be demonstrated is a minor cost savings over a human doing the same job, but you'll need semi-qualified humans to check the work in any real-world job situation. So we can replace experts with sorta-literate high school graduates. Yay?
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"Please reconsider, because if you keep locking your door then we'll be unable to leave our bags of dog poo in your house."
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The invention of Windows allowed semi-qualified humans to fix their own computer issues, often several times a day.
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Likewise you get a lot of people terribly upset that the instant their child turns 18 and leaves home, they become gay, or trans, or liberal, or get pregnant, or whatever, which they will immediately blame on someone else (universities, groomers, etc). "My baby was straight until he went to State U!" Sorry parents, you can't lock your child in a bubble for 70 years, instead they are allowed to be their own person.
Re: You are in a cult. (Score:1)
Advances? (Score:3)
Sounds like a good thing to me (Score:2)
If the EU is not going along on the way to idiocracy, that sounds like an excellent move to me.
Regulation is a mixed blessing (Score:2)
On one hand, it kind of limits what huge companies can do, but on the other, it perpetuates them.
Much like standards, regulated market ensure that the current incumbents are hard to challenge by smaller companies, increasing the cost of entry a lot while barely making a dent in the bottom line of large established players.