Remember I promised to have only one AI-related story this week. I hope you also remember I said it would be a stretch. And that’s because the AI Summit in Paris has now taken place. If you recall, a group of thirty-eight creative industry bodies, including the International Publishers Association, had come together to call for regulation around transparency and compensation in relation to copyright.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
US and UK Withhold Support for AI Agreement
The headline news this week is that the hopes of a unanimous agreement among the participating countries collapsed as both the UK and the US refused to sign a statement calling for an open, ethical approach to AI. That bald statement belies very different reasons for dissent. The UK felt that assurances on national security didn’t go far enough. The US felt that technology was being unduly targeted with regulation. But whatever the reasons, the result is the same: a potentially meaningful step forward has wavered, if not altogether halted.
What Was in the Statement?
So what was it that the two countries objected to? You can read the full statement here. It most importantly identifies the following as the key priorities for global discussion of AI:
- Promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides
- Ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure, and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all
- Making innovation in AI thrive by enabling conditions for its development and avoiding market concentration, driving industrial recovery and development
- Encouraging AI deployment that positively shapes the future of work and labor markets and delivers opportunities for sustainable growth
- Making AI sustainable for people and the planet
- Reinforcing international cooperation to promote coordination in international governance
What is notably absent from even these (partially unsigned) priorities is anything on copyright. That comes in the “also” section:
“We underline the need for a global reflection integrating inter alia questions of safety, sustainable development, innovation, respect of international laws including humanitarian law and human rights law and the protection of human rights, gender equality, linguistic diversity, protection of consumers and of intellectual property rights.”
It is clear we are a long way from anything tangible.
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