The European Union (EU) and United States plan to create a voluntary code of conduct on artificial intelligence (AI) that will be open to all like-minded countries. The code is expected to be drafted within weeks and aims to address the risks of AI and advance trustworthy and responsible AI technologies. The EU has been developing the world’s first regulations on AI, which would ban biometric surveillance and ensure human control. However, the rules would not come into effect until 2025 at the earliest. China has also discussed AI regulations, but Western powers fear that Beijing’s growing prowess in the field could lead to it setting global standards without Western unity.
During talks with EU officials in Sweden, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said that the Western partners felt a “fierce urgency” to act following the emergence of the technology, in which China has been a growing force. The voluntary code “would be open to all like-minded countries,” Blinken added.
The Trade and Technology Council between the EU and the United States, which was hosted in Sweden this year, discussed AI regulation. Sam Altman, whose firm OpenAI created the popular AI-driven ChatGPT bot, took part in the talks. In a joint statement, the two sides called AI a “transformative technology with great promise for our people, offering opportunities to increase prosperity and equity.” They added that experts from the two sides would work on “cooperation on AI standards and tools for trustworthy AI and risk management.”
Technology leaders, including Altman, have warned that AI poses a risk to the world without regulation. They wrote, “Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
