The EU wants to regulate your favorite AI tools

While exactly how these models will be regulated in AI law is still hotly debated, creators of general-purpose AI models, such as OpenAI, Google, and DeepMind, will likely need to be more open about how their models are built and trained, says Dragoș Tudorache, a liberal member of the European Parliament who is part of the AI ​​law negotiating team.

The regulation of these technologies is delicate, because there are two different sets of problems associated with generative models, and those have very different policy solutions, says Alex Engler, AI governance researcher at the Brookings Institution. One is the spread of harmful AI-generated content, such as hate speech and non-consensual pornography, and the other is the prospect of skewed results when companies incorporate these AI models into business processes. hire or use them to review legal documents.

Sharing more information about the models can help third parties who create products on top of them. But when it comes to spreading harmful AI-generated content, stricter rules are needed. Engler suggests that creators of generative models should be required to impose restrictions on what the models will produce, monitor their output, and ban users who abuse the technology. But even that won’t necessarily stop a determined person from spreading toxic stuff.

While tech companies have always been reluctant to reveal their secret sauce, the current push from regulators for more transparency and corporate accountability could usher in a new era where AI development is less exploitative and done in a way that respects rights such as privacy. It gives me hope for this year.

Deeper learning

Generative AI changes everything. But what’s left when the hype is gone?

Each year, MIT Technology Review reporters and editors select 10 game-changing technologies that could shape the future. Generative AI, the hottest thing in AI right now, is one of this year’s picks. (But you can and should read about the other nine technologies.)

What is going on: Text-to-image AI models such as OpenAI’s DALL-E have taken the world by storm. Its popularity surprised even its own creators. And while we’ll have to wait to see exactly what lasting impact these tools will have on the creative industries and on the entire field of AI, it’s clear that this is just the beginning.

What’s coming: Next year will likely introduce us to AI models that can do many different things, from generating images from text in multiple languages ​​to controlling robots. Generative AI could eventually be used to produce designs for everything from new buildings to new drugs. “I think it’s the legacy,” OpenAI founder Sam Altman told Will Douglas Heaven. “Images, video, audio, everything will eventually be generated. I think it’s just going to seep everywhere. Read Will’s story.