OpenAI CEO Sam Altman recently warned of potentially exiting the European Union (EU) due to the tighter regulations of the current draft of the EU AI Act. The draft legislation includes rules such as a requirement to disclose copyrighted content used in the development of generative AI tools. Altman explained that these may have the potential to over-regulate, and OpenAI will be attempting to comply with the standards before considering suspending operations from the EU.
OpenAI is a research laboratory created in 2015 by technology-industry leaders such as Elon Musk and Yusuf Mehdi. It focuses on developing human-level artificial intelligence and works on a range of AI technologies. ChatsGPT is one example of their ongoing work, which has recently sparked some controversy. It is an advanced AI model that can generate text-based conversations with humans and has the potential to be both beneficial and concerning depending on the context of use.
Last month, a group of European Parliament legislators called upon the U.S. President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to host a global summit to create a set of guiding principles for the development, control, and deployment of AI. Italy has already taken action against ChatGPT, banning it due to privacy concerns, while OpenAI themselves are working on various updates to the model to alleviate such concerns.
Overall, the regulation of AI will remain an important issue for the foreseeable future. It will be interesting to see how the EU AI Act is further amended and adopted as well as what steps OpenAI takes in complying with the rules. The concerns are ones that should taken seriously, and it is of the utmost importance that developers and organizations prioritize the safety of citizens when working with AI technology.
