This Wednesday, the European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services of the European Union, Thierry Breton, announced that the EU and Google They will seek to define a series of voluntary standards on Artificial Intelligence (AI) before specific legislation comes into force.
Through his Twitter account, Breton announced through a photo that he met with the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, this Wednesday, and stated that agreed to “work with all major European and non-European AI players to develop an “AI Pact” on a voluntary basis before the legal deadline for the regulation“ of said tool.
The commissioner argued that he cannot afford “the luxury of waiting for the (AI) law to come into force”, since the European Commission (executive arm of the EU) proposed legislation on Artificial Intelligence in 2021, which is why which since then the issue became urgent.
For his part, the European Parliament must endorse the aforementioned bill next month, thus opening a phase of difficult negotiations with the 27 member states of the European Union to define a final version.
The initiative would take time even if members adopted the legislation by the end of this year, since it would start to be applied “at the earliest by the end of 2025,” Breton stressed.
In the text of the legislation proposed in 2021, the European Parliament also includes a ban on Artificial Intelligence (AI) systems, biometric surveillance, emotion recognition and predictive surveillance.
The law also seeks to place generative (AI) systems such as ChatGPT and Midjourney, in a category that will require special measures that have transparency.
Adding to these efforts, European Commission Vice President Margrethe Vestager announced that US and European Union officials will discuss the matter with the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) in Sweden next week.
This news comes a week after Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, creator of the ChatGPT interface, testified for the first time at a hearing in the United States Senate on the impacts of Artificial Intelligence asking lawmakers to regulate it. this technology.
“I’m looking forward to helping policymakers determine how to ease regulation that balances the safety incentive and ensure that people can access the benefits of technology,” Altman said.
