7 ms·

Europeans Take a Major Step Toward Regulating A.I

47 points by nickwritesit 3y ago

xigoi 3y ago
Why are paywalled articles still allowed on HN? Who likes them?
- elzbardico 3y ago
  I think a lot of HN readers are also NYT subscribers. I used to be too. But, anyway, here it goes: https://web.archive.org/web/20230614120006/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/technology/europe-ai-regulation.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230614120006/https://www.nytim...
- euroderf 3y ago
  Part of the acquisition of hn-fu is understanding and using archive sites.
  - xigoi 3y ago
    Yeah, I can use an archive, but why not post the archive link directly to avoid wasting everyone's time and internet?
    - euroderf 3y ago
      Good question. For the sake of appearances ? Ya don't necessarily want to become known as a haven for copyright violation.
- fsflover 3y ago
  See FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
- layer8 3y ago
  Clear your cookies, you should be able to access a small number of articles for free per month.
- renewedrebecca 3y ago
  Just disable JavaScript.
bkm 3y ago
Concerning, as their lingo would say. According to the below article this will also screw over open-source developers and data scientists: Open Source LLMs Not Exempt: Open source foundational models are not exempt from the act. The programmers and distributors of the software have legal liability. For other forms of open source AI software, liability shifts to the group employing the software or bringing it to market. Source: https://technomancers.ai/eu-ai-act-to-target-us-open-source-software/ https://technomancers.ai/eu-ai-act-to-target-us-open-source-...
- snowpid 3y ago
  I doubt the source and its interpretation. LAION, one major open source developer, just didnt complain about the AI Act and they would be one affected by the law.
JustBreath 3y ago
Now that everyone has seen the value of LLMs, we enter the "establish a government-enforced monopoly" phase of the technology.
- ChatGTP 3y ago
  I have not really seen that much value ?
CyrsBel 3y ago
> In a bold stroke, the EU’s amended AI Act would ban American companies such as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and IBM from providing API access to generative AI models. The amended act, voted out of committee on Thursday, would sanction American open-source developers and software distributors, such as GitHub, if unlicensed generative models became available in Europe. While the act includes open source exceptions for traditional machine learning models, it expressly forbids safe-harbor provisions for open source generative systems. This is evil. The politicians who worked on this need to be chastised then fired. They're trying to formulate it as being about American IP but it's actually just because they're afraid they won't be able to lie and manipulate and brainwash people anymore if people can just learn any subject and test themselves on any subject via open LLMs that get better over time. This isn't regulating AI. It's an attempt to ban it except in cases where they are the gatekeepers to the fire. They don't want LLMs to obviate slow bureaucracy and lying.
- bigbluedots 3y ago
  People can already learn any subject on, y'know, The Internet. LLMs may help but are not required
  - CyrsBel 3y ago
    Not the same. With LLMs you can learn way faster and there's no agenda or lying, for the most part. It may repeat incorrect training data but it won't actually lie to you or sprinkle in agendas. Whereas with learning online, there's still a bunch of ad revenue, a bunch of noise, a bunch of needless pontification from people who don't teach well but have the authority because of slow bureaucracy. LLMs get rid of that really quickly. That is why they want to put it back in the box, but it's too late. This software must be open source and disseminated everywhere immediately, it's a huge boost for the species. There can be guard rails of course, but what is being proposed here by the EU is not guard rails. It is mind control.
    - yifanl 3y ago
      > it won't actually lie to you or sprinkle in agendas. That's _entirely_ dependant on the training dataset. Nothing about an LLM inherently prevents this.
ang_cire 3y ago
I am all for Europe's heavy-handed approach to putting user rights over companies', but this feels like in an attempt to protect consumers from unchecked AI they're handing the largest companies (who are usually the ones abusing users' rights in the first place) the keys to the kingdom.
- braza 3y ago
  > the keys of kingdom Hard to agree on that. Of course Europe has a huge industrial legacy and a population that has a high purchase power; and it is very welcomed by a generation of politicians trapped in the pst regarding of innovation and technology. Said that, with a demographic changing already happening plus with productivity gains provided by technology I think in 15 years will be a hard sell to not be a bit loose in that regard. And another thing: thanks for the conservatism, money generated by European users, and “fear” feeling from the American tech companies Europe is getting a huge free pass that those companies are not doing any kind of blackout or something like this. I would consider kingdom 20 years ago, with that demographic shift happening plus the technological advances and productivity gains; I feel that this is some sort of locking 500m of people as hostages in a museum.
  - Aerroon 3y ago
    >And another thing: thanks for the conservatism, money generated by European users, and “fear” feeling from the American tech companies Europe is getting a huge free pass that those companies are not doing any kind of blackout or something like this. I recently had to go through a bunch of Japanese sites. I got quite a lot of Http error 451 - Unavailable For Legal Reasons.
rs999gti 3y ago
I can see HN in 2-5 years from now, "Why are there no EU AI startups?" > Europeans Take a Major Step Toward Regulating A.I
- Aerroon 3y ago
  And when you get into the weeds it'll boil down to "But you need regulation. Otherwise bad things will happen like <example from recent AI outrage>." And then they continue paying American/Japanese/Chinese companies for access to AI tools.
  - jacooper 3y ago
    They won't because they wouldn't be able to use them, just like the GDPR and U.S. cloud providers. The EU knows that leaving the market wide open without regulations is basically killing any chance of EU-startups existing. You think China would've had such a big tech scene, if they hadn't limited U.S. companies competitiveness? The GDPR demonstrated this, it kick started many companies, because U.S. companies with their infinite money supply can't buy their way into every market anymore. Plausible, nextcloud, EU hosting companies and many others got a huge boost from the GDPR.
  - rs999gti 3y ago
    > And then they continue paying American/Japanese/Chinese companies for access to AI tools I think the EU companies will just do what they always do and carbon copy American/Japanese/Chinese AI websites and tools. For example, Xing instead of LinkedIn
ralusek 3y ago
This has made me formulate a new theory that European access legislature is actually funded by VPN providers.
- Bojak 3y ago
  Haha
AnishLaddha 3y ago
in 10 years we will see posts on hackernews and cscq wondering why europe has so few AI giants...
Aerroon 3y ago
Hey look, EU lawmakers ensuring that AI development stays dead in the EU. Bravo. It's like they're trying to make Europeans dependent on American and Chinese services.

47 points by nickwritesit 3y ago

xigoi 3y ago

Why are paywalled articles still allowed on HN? Who likes them?

elzbardico 3y ago
I think a lot of HN readers are also NYT subscribers. I used to be too. But, anyway, here it goes: https://web.archive.org/web/20230614120006/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/06/14/technology/europe-ai-regulation.html https://web.archive.org/web/20230614120006/https://www.nytim...
euroderf 3y ago
Part of the acquisition of hn-fu is understanding and using archive sites.
- xigoi 3y ago
  Yeah, I can use an archive, but why not post the archive link directly to avoid wasting everyone's time and internet?
  - euroderf 3y ago
    Good question. For the sake of appearances ? Ya don't necessarily want to become known as a haven for copyright violation.
fsflover 3y ago
See FAQ: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html.
layer8 3y ago
Clear your cookies, you should be able to access a small number of articles for free per month.
renewedrebecca 3y ago
Just disable JavaScript.

bkm 3y ago

Concerning, as their lingo would say. According to the below article this will also screw over open-source developers and data scientists: Open Source LLMs Not Exempt: Open source foundational models are not exempt from the act. The programmers and distributors of the software have legal liability. For other forms of open source AI software, liability shifts to the group employing the software or bringing it to market. Source: https://technomancers.ai/eu-ai-act-to-target-us-open-source-software/ https://technomancers.ai/eu-ai-act-to-target-us-open-source-...

snowpid 3y ago
I doubt the source and its interpretation. LAION, one major open source developer, just didnt complain about the AI Act and they would be one affected by the law.

JustBreath 3y ago

Now that everyone has seen the value of LLMs, we enter the "establish a government-enforced monopoly" phase of the technology.

ChatGTP 3y ago
I have not really seen that much value ?

CyrsBel 3y ago

> In a bold stroke, the EU’s amended AI Act would ban American companies such as OpenAI, Amazon, Google, and IBM from providing API access to generative AI models. The amended act, voted out of committee on Thursday, would sanction American open-source developers and software distributors, such as GitHub, if unlicensed generative models became available in Europe. While the act includes open source exceptions for traditional machine learning models, it expressly forbids safe-harbor provisions for open source generative systems. This is evil. The politicians who worked on this need to be chastised then fired. They're trying to formulate it as being about American IP but it's actually just because they're afraid they won't be able to lie and manipulate and brainwash people anymore if people can just learn any subject and test themselves on any subject via open LLMs that get better over time. This isn't regulating AI. It's an attempt to ban it except in cases where they are the gatekeepers to the fire. They don't want LLMs to obviate slow bureaucracy and lying.

bigbluedots 3y ago
People can already learn any subject on, y'know, The Internet. LLMs may help but are not required
- CyrsBel 3y ago
  Not the same. With LLMs you can learn way faster and there's no agenda or lying, for the most part. It may repeat incorrect training data but it won't actually lie to you or sprinkle in agendas. Whereas with learning online, there's still a bunch of ad revenue, a bunch of noise, a bunch of needless pontification from people who don't teach well but have the authority because of slow bureaucracy. LLMs get rid of that really quickly. That is why they want to put it back in the box, but it's too late. This software must be open source and disseminated everywhere immediately, it's a huge boost for the species. There can be guard rails of course, but what is being proposed here by the EU is not guard rails. It is mind control.
  - yifanl 3y ago
    > it won't actually lie to you or sprinkle in agendas. That's _entirely_ dependant on the training dataset. Nothing about an LLM inherently prevents this.

ang_cire 3y ago

I am all for Europe's heavy-handed approach to putting user rights over companies', but this feels like in an attempt to protect consumers from unchecked AI they're handing the largest companies (who are usually the ones abusing users' rights in the first place) the keys to the kingdom.

braza 3y ago
> the keys of kingdom Hard to agree on that. Of course Europe has a huge industrial legacy and a population that has a high purchase power; and it is very welcomed by a generation of politicians trapped in the pst regarding of innovation and technology. Said that, with a demographic changing already happening plus with productivity gains provided by technology I think in 15 years will be a hard sell to not be a bit loose in that regard. And another thing: thanks for the conservatism, money generated by European users, and “fear” feeling from the American tech companies Europe is getting a huge free pass that those companies are not doing any kind of blackout or something like this. I would consider kingdom 20 years ago, with that demographic shift happening plus the technological advances and productivity gains; I feel that this is some sort of locking 500m of people as hostages in a museum.
- Aerroon 3y ago
  >And another thing: thanks for the conservatism, money generated by European users, and “fear” feeling from the American tech companies Europe is getting a huge free pass that those companies are not doing any kind of blackout or something like this. I recently had to go through a bunch of Japanese sites. I got quite a lot of Http error 451 - Unavailable For Legal Reasons.

rs999gti 3y ago

I can see HN in 2-5 years from now, "Why are there no EU AI startups?" > Europeans Take a Major Step Toward Regulating A.I

Aerroon 3y ago
And when you get into the weeds it'll boil down to "But you need regulation. Otherwise bad things will happen like <example from recent AI outrage>." And then they continue paying American/Japanese/Chinese companies for access to AI tools.
- jacooper 3y ago
  They won't because they wouldn't be able to use them, just like the GDPR and U.S. cloud providers. The EU knows that leaving the market wide open without regulations is basically killing any chance of EU-startups existing. You think China would've had such a big tech scene, if they hadn't limited U.S. companies competitiveness? The GDPR demonstrated this, it kick started many companies, because U.S. companies with their infinite money supply can't buy their way into every market anymore. Plausible, nextcloud, EU hosting companies and many others got a huge boost from the GDPR.
- rs999gti 3y ago
  > And then they continue paying American/Japanese/Chinese companies for access to AI tools I think the EU companies will just do what they always do and carbon copy American/Japanese/Chinese AI websites and tools. For example, Xing instead of LinkedIn

ralusek 3y ago

This has made me formulate a new theory that European access legislature is actually funded by VPN providers.

Bojak 3y ago
Haha

AnishLaddha 3y ago

in 10 years we will see posts on hackernews and cscq wondering why europe has so few AI giants...

Aerroon 3y ago

Hey look, EU lawmakers ensuring that AI development stays dead in the EU. Bravo. It's like they're trying to make Europeans dependent on American and Chinese services.