OpenAI Advocated for Weaker AI Regulations in Private While Urging Public Regulation

OpenAI, a leading artificial intelligence (AI) research laboratory, has been accused of lobbying for weaker AI regulations while publicly calling for regulation. According to documents obtained by Time from the European Commission, the company sought to weaken the scope of the EU’s AI Act, which classifies general purpose AI systems such as GPT-3 as high risk and requires legal oversight. OpenAI argued that the focus should be on companies using language models rather than those providing the models. Its lobbying efforts were reportedly successful, with the EU removing language that the company had opposed. OpenAI CEO, Sam Altman, previously threatened to pull the company out of the EU over the AI Act, but has since reverse course following the removal of some of its provisions.