Generative AI exploded into the public consciousness in late 2022. A year from now, the technology could be one of the most regulated in its industry.
Across the globe, from the US and the EU to Brazil, lawmakers are urgently considering and, in China's case enacting, rules for managing artificial intelligence and reining in some of the more-alarming use cases.
The EU is likely to be the first region to enact some form of oversight or regulation around generative AI. The European Commission, made up of about two dozen countries, is in late-stage negotiations over the AI Act, which it dubbed "the world's first rules on AI." The expectation is for a final version of the AI Act to be agreed on this year, meaning it would go into effect in late 2025.
Some AI tools could be banned in Europe
The act was first proposed in 2021, before OpenAI released its generative-AI tools ChatGPT and DALL-E, leading the likes of Meta, Google, and Microsoft to become public players in and leading proponents of generative AI.
The EU draft regulation was updated this year. The act's biggest push is to categorize AI models and tools that are "high" risk or simply "unacceptable." AI that falls under the high-risk category includes tools for biometric identification, education, worker management, the legal system, and law enforcement, along with any tool that would need to be "assessed" and approved before release.
AI tools and uses deemed "unacceptable" would be banned in the EU under the act. That includes "remote biometric identification systems," or facial-recognition technology; "social scoring," or categorizing people based on economic class and personal characteristics; and "cognitive behavioral manipulation," such as voice-activated AI-powered toys.
As for generative AI, under the EU's proposed rules, disclosure of what is artificially generated content would be mandatory, as would disclosure of the data used to train any large language model. Given the increased scrutiny and legal action by authors and other creators of content that has been scraped off the internet and collected for massive sets of training data, companies behind AI tools and LLMs have started to not specify where their training data comes from. With the act, companies would also need to show they'd worked to mitigate legal risks before releasing tools and models and register all foundational models in a database maintained by the European Commission.
The US approach
The US is behind the EU when it comes to regulating AI. Last month, the White House said it was "developing an executive order" on the technology and would pursue "bipartisan regulation." While the White House has been actively seeking advice from industry experts, the Senate has convened one hearing and one closed-door "AI forum" with leaders from major tech companies. Neither event resulted in much action, despite Mark Zuckerberg being confronted during the forum with the fact that Meta's Llama 2 model gave a detailed guide for making anthrax. Still, American lawmakers say they're committed to some form of AI regulation.
"Make no mistake, there will be regulation," Sen. Richard Blumenthal said during the hearing.
US copyright law could change as well. The Copyright Office said in August it was considering action or federal rules around generative AI because of "widespread public debate about what these systems may mean for the future of creative industries." It opened a public comment-period through early November, and it has received more than 7,500 submissions.
What's happening in the UK
The UK, meanwhile, wants to become an "AI superpower," a March paper from its Department for Science, Innovation and Technology said. While the government body has created a "regulatory sandbox for AI," the UK has no immediate intention of introducing any legislation to oversee it. Instead, it intends to assess AI as it progresses.
"By rushing to legislate too early, we would risk placing undue burdens on businesses," Michelle Donelan, the secretary of state for science, innovation, and technology, said. "As the technology evolves, our regulatory approach may also need to adjust."
Brazil and China
In a draft-legislation update earlier this year, Brazil looked to take a similar approach to the EU in categorizing AI tools and uses by "high" or "excessive" risk and to ban those found to be in the latter category. The proposed law was described by the tech-advisory firm Access Partnership as having a "robust human rights" focus, while outlining a "strict liability regime." With the legislation, Brazil would hold creators of an LLM liable for harm caused by any AI system deemed high risk.
However, it's China where some of the only new regulations on AI have been enacted. Despite that nation's widespread usage of tech such as facial recognition for government surveillance, China in the past two years has enacted rules on recommendation algorithms, a core use case for AI, and the following year further rules on "deep synthesis" tech, better known as "deep fakes." Now it's looking to regulate generative AI. One of the most notable rules proposed in draft legislation would mandate that any LLM, and its training data, be "true and accurate."
That one requirement could be enough to keep consumer-level generative AI out of China almost entirely. A report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a nonpartisan think tank, on China's rules said it was "a potentially insurmountable hurdle for AI chatbots to clear."
Correction: October 10, 2023 — A previous version of this story misspelled a name in the 12th paragraph. This has been updated to: Michelle Donelan.
