It doesn’t inspire confidence when politicians change their minds. But you must give credit when a bad idea is dropped.
Last year, we reported on the determination of British PM Rishi Sunak to lead the world in regulating the dangers of Artificial Intelligence.
Perhaps he changed his mind after meeting the regulators, because now he sees things very differently.
“Too often regulation can stifle those innovators. We cannot let that happen. Not with potentially the most transformative technology of our time.”
And:
“That’s why we don’t support calls for a blanket ban or pause in AI. It’s why we are not legislating. It’s also why we are pro-open source. Open source drives innovation. It creates start-ups. It creates communities. There must be a very high bar for any restrictions on open source.”
Perhaps he also spent a little time with the AI people:
“This has been a superb week for investment in the UK – a huge vote of confidence in our plan. Today CoreWeave – a US AI start up valued at $19 billion – announced a $1 billion investment in data centres in the UK. On Tuesday the biggest investment in a UK AI start-up in history was announced. Over $1 billion into autonomous vehicle start-up Wayve.
On top of that CoreWeave is also establishing its European headquarters in London. And earlier this week top US company Scale AI announced it was doing the same.
They are not the only ones. Microsoft recently announced their AI hub in London. OpenAI, Anthropic, Palantir and Cohere have all chosen to locate their European headquarters here.”
And perhaps Rishi belatedly realised that this might be one of the bigger post-Brexit opportunities for the UK.
Because while Rishi thought about leading the world in global regulation, the European Union acted, this week passing its Artificial Intelligence Act.
The EU shows no fear in regulating technologies the implications of which are hardly realised. Indeed, they believe that they understand them.
“The new law categorises different types of artificial intelligence according to risk. AI systems presenting only limited risk would be subject to very light transparency obligations, while high-risk AI systems would be authorised, but subject to a set of requirements and obligations to gain access to the EU market.”
And some things need to be specifically prohibited:
“AI systems such as, for example, cognitive behavioural manipulation and social scoring will be banned from the EU because their risk is deemed unacceptable. The law also prohibits the use of AI for predictive policing based on profiling and systems that use biometric data to categorise people according to specific categories such as race, religion, or sexual orientation.”
Some think the legislation sets a “global standard” which will give the EU a “first mover advantage”.
Then again, global standards didn’t do much to help the mediaeval church control the printing press or shape the development of the European tradition of empirical knowledge.
If the EU regulations bite, the most likely effect is that the innovation will go elsewhere (ideally to London in Rishi’s plans), leaving Europe at risk of becoming a second tier market where technological innovations are adopted late and with lower consumer benefits.
Which ought to remind us that the highest bar to realising the full benefits of AI – and indeed any – innovation is unlikely to be new and misplaced AI-specific regulations. Rather it will be the extent to which the existing corpus of national regulation restricts AI-driven flexibility and innovation in the production and delivery of goods or services, ranging from the rules of copyright to restrictions on who can give medical or legal advice.
Here lie the opportunities for policymakers in small countries like NZ, which are never going to be the world’s AI capital (nor regulator for that matter).
Point of Order 