Alphabet, the parent company of Google, and the European Commission announced that they will work on a voluntary artificial intelligence pact, which involve European companies and other parts of the world. The initiative wants to anticipate the approval of the legislation that the European Parliament is preparing to regulate this type of technology.
“There is no time to waste in the AI race to build a safe online environment”said in a statement Thierry Breton, commissioner of the internal market of the European Union, after meeting this Wednesday with Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.
There are still no details about what this voluntary agreement could contemplate in which, for now, only Google has announced its participation. As with any self-regulatory agreement, this would have no legal weight. In other words, there would be no way to force developers to sign up or enforce their agreement. Breton explained, however, that waiting until the artificial intelligence regulation under discussion can be applied is a luxury. “that we cannot give ourselves”.
Margrethe Vestager, EU Commissioner for Competition who also attended the meeting, said that Europe and the United States plan to intensify cooperation around artificial intelligence. The joint work will aim to establish minimum standards for the use and development of artificial intelligence, the official said.
Google’s voluntary agreement is ahead of European law
“AI technology evolves at extreme speed. Therefore, we need a voluntary agreement on universal rules for artificial intelligence now,” Vestager said on Twitter.
The commissioner, in addition to celebrating Google’s voluntary pact, made reference to the work plan announced by the G7 countries, with which they hope to develop international technical standards to regulate artificial intelligence. The group, in which the EU also participates, promised to present some proposal before the end of the year. “We have no time to waste,” Vestarger insisted.
Lawmakers in the European Parliament approved a draft of a strict rule for the region on artificial intelligence earlier this month. The standard has been under discussion for more than two years, but it began to move faster in response to the barrage of technology releases in recent months.
The legislative proposal classifies systems that use artificial intelligence according to their level of risk, from low to unacceptable. For example, it prohibits the use of facial recognition in public spaces and predictive police tools..
It also places new demands on transparency and privacy to applications like ChatGPT. Although some industry players fear it is too limiting, human rights organizations such as Amnesty International have welcomed the initiative.
The text will be presented to the parliamentary plenary session in June. If approved, negotiations with EU Member States will begin. Only once all this has been overcome would its implementation begin.