Photo Credit: Alexey Larionov
A group of companies led by Meta and including Spotify have issued an open letter to the European Union concerning “fragmented and inconsistent” decision-making on artificial intelligence and data privacy.
Meta, Spotify, and several other companies and researchers have signed the open letter claiming that Europe has become less competitive and risks falling behind in the age of AI. The signatories seek “harmonized, consistent, quick and clear decisions” from data privacy regulators to “enable European data to be used in AI training for the benefit of Europeans.”
The letter specifically takes issue with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) which passed in 2018. Specifically, Meta has stopped plans to harvest data from European users to train AI models after privacy regulators put pressure on the company and have issued fines for failing to respect privacy laws.
“In recent times, regulatory decision making has become fragmented and unpredictable, while interventions by the European Data Protection Authorities have created huge uncertainty about what kinds of data can be used to train AI models,” the letter reads.
“This means the next generation of open source AI models, and products, services we build on them, won’t understand or reflect European knowledge, culture or languages.”
Meta has faced record fines in the EU for breaching privacy laws, including a fine of 1.2 billion euros under the GDPR. Europe has been at the forefront of framing major legislation around the use of AI, its AI Act coming into force earlier this year. Meta has delayed releasing products in the European market—including the release of Twitter alternative Threads.
“We hope European policymakers and regulators see what is at stake if there is no change of course. Europe can’t afford to miss out on the widespread benefits from responsibly built open AI technologies that will accelerate economic growth and unlock progress in scientific research,” the letter continues.
“For that we need harmonized, consistent, quick and clear decisions under EU data regulations that enable European data to be used in AI training for the benefit of Europeans. Decisive action is needed to help unlock the creativity, ingenuity and entrepreneurialism that will ensure Europe’s prosperity, growth and technical leadership.”
