Recently, companies like Meta and Spotify have joined forces to publicly criticize the European Union's decisions in the areas of data privacy and artificial intelligence (AI). In an open letter, they pointed out that the EU's decision-making process has become "fragmented and inconsistent," which not only affects business operations but could also lead to Europe losing its competitive edge in the AI era.
Image source: The image was generated by AI, provided by the image licensing service Midjourney
The open letter mentioned that with the strengthening of data privacy regulations, businesses face significant uncertainties when using data to train AI models. Take Meta, for example, which originally planned to collect data from European users to train its AI models, but under pressure from privacy regulators, this plan was forced to be shelved. This has left Meta unable to effectively utilize data for AI innovation when facing regulatory challenges.
The letter calls on data privacy regulators to make "coordinated, consistent, swift, and clear decisions" to ensure the lawful use of European data to promote AI development, thereby benefiting Europeans. Businesses hope to gain more legal certainty within the regulatory framework to better drive technological progress.
Additionally, Meta has been heavily fined in the past for violating user privacy regulations, including being fined over one billion euros under the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) implemented in 2018. Such experiences have made businesses more cautious when facing new regulations, leading them to consider legal risks when launching new products in the European market.
Not only Meta, but other tech giants like Google are also delaying the launch of new AI tools in the EU to seek a clearer legal framework. Last year, Meta postponed the release of its new social media platform "Threads" in the EU by several months, also to avoid potential legal issues.
As the EU begins to implement stricter data privacy and AI-related regulations, the operational models and innovation pace of businesses are being affected. They hope that the EU will make reasonable adjustments to relevant laws to adapt to the rapidly evolving technological environment.
Key Points:
- 📜 Companies like Meta and Spotify criticize the EU's inconsistent decisions on data privacy and AI, affecting business competitiveness.
- ⚖️ The open letter calls for regulatory bodies to provide a clear legal framework to legally use data to promote AI development.
- ⏳ Businesses are delaying new product launches, such as Meta's "Threads," due to legal risks.