A group of 12 Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are calling for a set of global rules to regulate the rapid advancements of AI systems. They believe that technology is advancing too fast and is “faster and more unpredictable” than expected.
The MEPs have expressed their concerns in an open letter, addressed to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and US President Joe Biden. They are calling for a global AI summit where world leaders can decide on principles governing the development and use of powerful AI, with the aim of making it “human-centric, safe, and trustworthy.”
The MEPs are also asking companies and laboratories creating AI models to demonstrate greater responsibility and transparency, and to work with policymakers. This open letter comes at a time when several EU countries are trying to regulate the operation of advanced AI models in the absence of an overarching European regulation. For example, France, Spain, and Italy have individually opened investigations into OpenAI’s ChatGPT, and the latter has even imposed a temporary ban.
Moreover, over 26,000 individuals — including researchers at DeepMind, computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, and Elon Musk — have signed a letter published by the Future of Life Institute (FLI) calling for a pause of six months for the development of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4, the successor of ChatGPT. The MEPs agree with this message and strongly caution that political inaction may complicate the efforts of policy makers to regulate AI.
The EU AI Act has been in draft form for nearly two years now, and is currently being discussed by a parliamentary committee. They hope to reach a common position by April 26th.
The underlying message of these open letters is clear: the advancements of AI must be regulated in a human-centric manner, and providing global oversight of the technology is essential for this.
OpenAI is a research laboratory focused on advanced Artificial Intelligence, founded by Elon Musk, Sam Altman, and Greg Brockman in late 2015. With the mission of advancing digital intelligence in the way that is most likely to benefit humanity as a whole, OpenAI works on various research fields, such as natural language processing, computer vision, robotics, and generative models.
Yoshua Bengio is an AI researcher and computer scientist, widely considered one of the founding fathers of deep learning. He discovered a variety of techniques to make AI more powerful, as well as co-authored multiple books. Throughout his career, he has been advocating for an ethical, socially beneficial, and responsible application of AI. He has received multiple awards, including the Turing Award, the highest distinction of the field of AI.
