London
CNN
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Amazon and Meta executives told CNN this week that some of the fears about artificial intelligence are overblown and that the European Union’s sweeping new rules on A.I. risk slowing down innovation.
The EU gave the final green light to its AI Act on Tuesday, the same week tech executives gathered in Paris for the annual VivaTech conference.
THE a unique law of its kind is poised to reshape the way businesses and other organizations in Europe use AI for everything from healthcare decisions to policing. It imposes blanket prohibitions on using technology in ways deemed “unacceptable,” such as for social assessment.
The regulation also creates new disclosure obligations for large AI companies and requires more transparency on uses of AI considered “high risk,” such as for education and hiring.
For meta (META) For Yann LeCun, head of AI, “the big question” of the new law is “should research and development in the field of AI be regulated?”
“There are clauses in EU AI law and various other places that regulate research and development. I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he told CNN’s Anna Stewart at the event in Paris.
LeCun, widely known as one of the “godfathers of AI,” disagrees with fears that AI could soon surpass human intelligence.
“I don’t think it’s close,” he said. “Frankly, I don’t think it’s that dangerous, certainly not today.”
AI systems could become much smarter in the future, but then they will be designed with appropriate safeguards, he added.
“But today, trying to understand how to make future super-intelligent AI systems safer is like asking in 1925, “How can we make jet transportation safe?” “And jet transportation hasn’t been invented yet,” he said.
from Amazon (AMZN), Werner Vogels, chief technology officer, echoed concerns that AI regulation could stifle innovation in some areas.
When thinking about risks, regulators should consider the application of new technology to: for example, health care and financial services differently from their use to summarize the meetings, he told Stewart.
“There are a whole range of areas where I think the risks are minimal and we should let innovation develop there,” he said. In other areas, where errors can have a greater impact on people’s lives, risks need to be managed ‘just for that particular area’.
Vogels stressed that Amazon welcomes regulation and aligns with regulators’ overall goals, but warned the EU against over-regulating AI, citing the example of its flagship data privacy law. data, known as GDPR, which he called a very “thick” book. .
“Let’s make sure that the regulatory requirements that we have put in place, companies – not just the biggest company but all companies in Europe – can actually implement them,” he said.
“We need to make sure that innovation continues to happen and that it doesn’t just come from outside Europe. In Europe, we already have a very long history of underinvestment in R&D,” he added.
