New York.- The leaders of Meta, Mark Zuckerberg, and Spotify, Daniel Ek, have accused EU regulatory bodies in a joint statement this Friday of hindering the development of artificial intelligence (AI) on the continent.
They argue that the implementation of open-source AI—which allows its source code to be freely used, modified, and distributed by anyone—is essential for Europe. According to them, the lack of adoption risks leaving Europe behind due to its “incoherent and complicated” regulation, and ignores a technology with the potential to add “trillions of dollars to the global economy.”
In their joint message, they emphasize that the benefit of open source is that it ensures “(AI) power is not concentrated in a few large hands, and, as happened with the Internet, creates a level playing field.”
In the race to lead in benchmark AI for both businesses and users, entities like Meta with its Llama AI have opted for open source, while others like OpenAI, creators of ChatGPT, have chosen closed source.
“With a greater number of open-source developers than the United States, Europe is uniquely positioned to benefit from this new wave of open-source AI. However, its complex regulatory structure, with inconsistent implementation, is limiting innovation and holding back developers,” Zuckerberg and Ek stress in their statement.
EU Regulations
In their open letter, which also appeared in The Economist, the executives, both in their early forties, criticize the EU’s lengthy process for regulating new technologies, highlighting the European Artificial Intelligence Act, the world’s first regulation of its kind.
This regulation seeks to boost and strengthen European industry, fostering investment and innovation in AI across all member countries.
On the other hand, powers like the United States and China allow their corporations to fully explore this technology before considering legal restrictions.
In the case of Spotify, they highlight the immense potential of open-source AI for the music streaming industry, making it easier for users to discover new artists.
Meanwhile, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp is impacted by the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).
“Meta has been asked to postpone training its models with public user content on Facebook and Instagram, not due to legal violations, but because of a lack of consensus among regulators on how to proceed,” the document states.
The head of Meta describes in his letter that the company will not be able to launch models like multimodal Llama, which is capable of interpreting images.
“Even though Spotify and Meta use AI in different ways, we agree that well-thought-out, clear, and uniform regulation could stimulate competition and innovation, while protecting individuals and giving them access to new technologies that empower them,” Zuckerberg and Ek conclude.
Image credits for this post: Deultimominuto.net
