OpenAI behind ChatGPT could leave Europe due to announced AI law

The CEO of OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, Sam Altman, said that the upcoming EU law on artificial intelligence (AI) could force the company to leave Europe. However, he noted that OpenAI will try to comply with the new rules before making a decision to withdraw from the European market.

This law would probably be the first to specifically regulate the field of artificial intelligence. EU parliamentarians are currently in the process of drafting a law that would align the management of this technology with the provisions of the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDRP).

EU leaders believe that new regulations on artificial intelligence should reconcile ethical requirements, protect users and democracy, while at the same time enabling aspirations for innovation in this sector.

At the beginning of the month, European parliamentarians, the European Council and the European Commission reached a consensus on what should be included in the draft law. MPs are expected to present the final details of the law in the upcoming debate.

Altman told Reuters that the current draft EU law on artificial intelligence would be over-regulating the field, but also that they had heard it would be withdrawn.

He said it would be technically impossible for OpenAI to meet some of the AI ​​Act’s security and transparency requirements.

The bill would, for example, require AI companies to disclose what copyrighted material was used to train their systems because many in the creative industries accuse these companies of using the work of artists, musicians and actors to train their systems.

At a gathering at University College London, the director of OpenAI said he was optimistic that artificial intelligence could create more jobs and reduce inequality.

However, Altman himself, testifying before US lawmakers on Capitol Hill this month, acknowledged that artificial intelligence poses a “serious risk” if allowed to develop unchecked.

He met in London with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the CEOs of AI companies DeepMind and Anthropic to discuss the risks of the technology, from disinformation to national security and even “existential threats,” as well as the regulations needed to govern the technology.

Other tech giants, such as Apple, Amazon and Meta, are currently developing and testing their own AI generative models. And Google announced its AI model, Bard, for users in the US, not to mention the EU. Bard will be available to users in more than 180 countries, excluding the EU and Canada. Many believe that this exclusion of the EU from Google’s plans is the result of the company not wanting problems due to strict European privacy regulations.

Some experts fear that superintelligent artificial intelligence systems could threaten the existence of humanity.

At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the leaders of the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada agreed that creating “trustworthy” artificial intelligence must be an “international endeavour”.

Concerns about ChatGPT and other AI tools violating individual privacy rights and EU data collection practices have led several member states to launch their own investigations and even temporarily restrict access to ChatGPT.

The new EU law could become a global benchmark for solving problems related to artificial intelligence technology.

Last month, the European Data Protection Board (EDPB) formed a task force to monitor and control ChatGPT and all its successors.

Photo: Jonathan Kemper / Unsplash