ChatGPT creator turns back on threat to leave EU over AI law

The boss of the company behind ChatGPT has said he has no plans to leave Europe.

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, turned against a threat he made earlier this week to leave the bloc if it becomes too difficult to comply with upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) laws.

But he bounced back after widespread coverage of his comments.

“We are delighted to continue operating here and of course have no plans to leave,” he tweeted.

The proposed law could require generative AI companies to disclose what copyrighted material has been used to train their systems to create text and images.

Many in the creative industry accuse AI companies of using the work of artists, musicians and actors to train systems to imitate their work.

But Mr. Altman worries that it would be technically impossible for OpenAI to meet some of the security and transparency requirements of the AI ​​law, according to Time magazine.

Speaking at an event at University College London on Wednesday, Mr Altman added that he was optimistic AI could create more jobs and reduce inequality.

He also met Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and the heads of AI companies DeepMind and Anthropic to discuss the risks of the technology – from disinformation to national security and even “existential threats” – and the voluntary actions and regulations needed to contain them .

But Mr Sunak said AI “could positively transform humanity” and “provide better outcomes for the British public, with emerging opportunities in a number of areas to improve public services”.

At the G7 summit in Hiroshima, the leaders of the US, UK, Germany, France, Italy, Japan and Canada agreed that creating “trustworthy” AI should be “an international endeavor”.

And before EU legislation comes into force, the European Commission wants to sign an AI pact with Alphabet, Google’s parent company.

International cooperation is essential for regulating AI, according to EU industry chief Thierry Breton, who met with Google CEO Sundar Pichai in Brussels.

“Sundar and I agreed that we cannot afford to wait for AI regulations to actually take effect – and to work with all AI developers to voluntarily sign an AI pact before the legal deadline. development,” said Breton.

Silicon Valley veteran, author and O’Reilly Media founder Tim O’Reilly said the best start would be to mandate transparency and build regulatory institutions to enforce accountability.

“AI scaremongering, coupled with regulatory complexity, can lead to analysis paralysis,” he said.

“Companies creating advanced AI should work together to formulate a comprehensive set of metrics that can be regularly and consistently reported to regulators and the public, as well as a process for updating those metrics as new best practices emerge.”