Europe’s New AI Law Harms Innovation: Big Tech Execs

Amazon and Meta executives told Tom Foster of CNN that some of the fears about artificial intelligence (AI) are overblown and that the European Union’s sweeping new AI rules risk holding back innovation.

The EU 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.

The EU has given the final green light to its AI act on the same week tech leaders gathered in Paris for the annual VivaTech conference.

The first-of-its-kind law is poised to reshape how firms and other organizations in Europe use AI for everything from healthcare decisions to policing. It imposes blanket bans on using the technology in ways deemed “unacceptable” — for example, for social scoring.

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’s (META) AI chief, Yann LeCun, “the big question” about the new law is “should research and development (R&D) in AI be regulated?”

He added: “There are clauses in the EU AI act and various other places that do regulate research and development. I don’t think it’s a good idea.”