The United States and the European Union share a fascination, and concern, with all the possibilities—and risks—of the rapid advancement of generative artificial intelligence (AI) across the board. Europe is already preparing with a pioneering law that seeks to regulate all aspects of AI, but until it is approved – it is still in the legislative negotiation phase in Brussels – and it enters into force, it may still take years. A few precious years in which this type of technology can continue to advance without control. Is what they want to avoid Washington and Brussels, which intend to shortly present a voluntary “code of conduct” for companies that develop this type of technology, according to progress made this Wednesday at a bilateral meeting in Sweden.
“In the coming weeks, we will advance a proposal for a code of conduct for generative AI to which the industry can voluntarily commit”, revealed the vice-president of the European Commission for the digital and competition area, Margrethe Vestager, at the end of the a ministerial meeting of the branch with the United States in Lulea, Sweden. The text, prepared together with the United States and for which both the industry and experts will be consulted, should be “very, very soon, in the next few weeks”, she added.
The announcement comes 24 hours before Sam Altman, the founder of the OpenAI company that created ChatGPT, the technology that has set off all the alarm bells, arrives in Brussels as part of a European tour that has taken him to various capitals, including Madrid. At the EU headquarters, Altman, who is one of the advocates of a regulation of generative AI, will meet with the president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, in a “working meeting” closed to the press. But first, Altman has met with Vestager and the US Secretary of Commerce, Gina Raimondo, in Lulea, where they have discussed the possible voluntary code of conduct, which according to “ideas” discussed with developers of generative AI, could include controls such as watermark, or external audits, Vestager said in a tweet.
The EU wants to be a pioneer in the regulation of artificial intelligence, for which it has made a legislative proposal, the AI Act. The text should be approved in the next plenary session of the European Parliament, in mid-June, after which the stage will begin. negotiation with the Council of the EU and the Commission to reach an agreement on a final text that, after its new ratification by the Twenty-seven and the European Parliament, will enter into force throughout the EU.
But as Vestager pointed out this Wednesday, generative AI represents a tipping point “so powerful” that it may not be possible to wait for lawmakers to finish their job. “We have several different legislative procedures, it will take 2 or 3 years before they enter into force, and we are talking about an incredible technological acceleration,” Vestager explained in an appearance with the US Secretary of State, Anthony Blinken, and Raimondo.
A voluntary code of conduct, which according to Vestager will try to get companies from other countries, such as Canada, the United Kingdom, Japan or India to join, could provide a regulatory “bridge” until current regulations come into force — or future ones. laws in other regions—and thus give citizens confidence that “democracies respond” to their challenges and concerns.
This move comes just one day after a group of 350 executives, researchers and engineers who are experts in this technology signed a open letter of only 22 words about the risk of this technology. “Mitigate the risk of extinction [para la humanidad] of AI should be a global priority along with other risks on a societal scale, such as pandemics and nuclear war”, cites the statement that has been signed, among others, by the senior executives of three of the main artificial intelligence companies: Sam Altman (CEO of OpenAI), Demis Hassabis (Google DeepMind) and Dario Amodei (Anthropic). Also among the signatories are researchers Geoffrey Hinton and Yoshua Bengio, who are often considered godfathers of the modern AI movement. Hinton left Google a few weeks ago, where he held a vice presidency, because he believes that this technology can lead to the end of civilization in a matter of years, as he confessed to EL PAÍS.
The statement comes at a time of growing concern for a fast-developing and hard-to-control sector. Sam Altman himself had already spoken out on this issue during his appearance before the US Senate, when he recognized the importance of regulating generative artificial intelligence. “My worst fear is that this technology will go wrong. And if it goes wrong, it can go very wrong,” he said just two weeks ago during the first hearing on AI held on Capitol Hill. The OpenAI father added that he understood that “people are anxious about how [la IA] it can change the way we live”, and that for this reason it is necessary “to work together to identify and manage the possible disadvantages so that we can all enjoy the tremendous advantages”.
Nor was it the first time that one of the businessmen most involved in this technology made statements of this magnitude regarding the future of AI. In March, more than a thousand intellectuals, researchers and businessmen had signed another open letter in which they requested to halt for “at least six months the development of AI systems more powerful than GPT4”, the latest version of ChatGPT. In the letter, the signatories warned that the OpenAI tool is already capable of competing with humans in an increasing number of tasks, and could be used to destroy jobs and spread disinformation.
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