30-6-2023 (STOCKHOLM) Over 160 executives at companies ranging from Renault to Meta have signed an open letter warning that the proposed EU Artificial Intelligence (AI) legislation would jeopardise Europe’s competitiveness and technological sovereignty. EU lawmakers agreed on a set of draft rules this month, requiring systems such as ChatGPT to disclose AI-generated content, help distinguish deep-fake images from real ones, and ensure safeguards against illegal content.
The signatories of the letter include Yann LeCun, who works at Meta, and executives from a diverse set of companies such as Spanish telecom company Cellnex, French software company Mirakl, and German investment bank Berenberg. The letter warned that under the proposed EU rules, technologies such as generative AI would become heavily regulated, and companies developing such systems would face high compliance costs and disproportionate liability risks.
The regulation could lead to highly innovative companies moving their activities abroad and investors withdrawing their capital from the development of European AI in general. If passed, the EU legislation would impact emerging AI technologies, including ChatGPT, which has become increasingly popular in recent years and has already had several open letters issued calling for regulation of AI and raising the “risk of extinction from AI.”
OpenAI’s CEO Sam Altman, who had threatened to pull ChatGPT from Europe in May if it becomes too hard to comply with upcoming AI laws, later reversed his position and said the company has no plans to exit. However, the open letter signed by executives at Renault, Meta, and other companies warns that the proposed EU rules would lead to a loss of European competitiveness in AI and threaten technological sovereignty.
