Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Spotify CEO Daniel Ek said in a joint statement on Friday (August 23) that European Union (EU) regulations affecting artificial intelligence (AI) could deny businesses, academia and other stakeholders in the region the opportunity to invest in new technologies and participate in economic growth opportunities.
In a statement, the CEOs said tech companies operating in Europe face “overlapping regulations and inconsistent guidance on how to comply with them.”
“While regulation of known harms is necessary, preemptively regulating theoretical harms to emerging technologies such as open source AI would stifle innovation,” the researchers wrote. “Europe’s risk-averse and complex regulations could prevent companies from capitalizing on big bets that could lead to big benefits.”
The statement highlighted the recent application of the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which forced Meta to delay training its AI models on content published by adults on social media platforms Facebook and Meta.
“In the short term, delaying the use of data that is routinely used in other regions means that the most powerful AI models will not reflect Europe’s collective knowledge, culture and language, and Europeans will not be able to use the latest AI products,” the CEOs wrote.
They added that current regulatory uncertainty in the region would prevent Meta from releasing its upcoming models there, depriving European organizations of access to the latest open source technology and forcing European citizens to use someone else’s AI.
“In short, Europe needs a new approach, with clearer policies and more consistent enforcement,” Zuckerberg and Ek said in a statement. “With the right regulatory environment, the right ambition, and world-class AI talent, the EU has a real chance to lead the next generation of tech innovation.”
PYMNTS reported in July that there are concerns that the withdrawal of Meta, Apple and other AI companies from offering advanced AI services in the EU could have a significant impact on commerce as companies operating in the region would lose access to cutting-edge tools.
European privacy group NOYB filed a complaint in June with 11 European countries, alleging that Meta violates GDPR by using user data to train its AI.
“Meta is essentially saying that it can ‘use any data from any source for any purpose and make it available to anyone, anywhere in the world,’ as long as it’s done via ‘AI technology,'” NYOB founder Max Schrems said in a press release at the time. “This is clearly against GDPR compliance.”
