Almost as soon as ChatGPT was released, the debate about how to regulate this technology began, and it rages on.
This debate largely divides into two camps: those that favour new legislation to determine how AI should be developed and used, and those that favour a less pre-emptive approach that allows the technology to develop and responds to problems as they emerge.
In 2023, the UK hosted the first global AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park.
The UK hosted the first global AI Safety Summit in November 2023 at Bletchley Park, which was the venue where Allied codebreakers, including Alan Turing, worked during World War II. At the summit, the UK government announced the launch of the UK's AI Safety Institute, which tests the safety of emerging types of AI.
The UK's Labour government committed in its general election manifesto to "ensure the safe development and use of AI models by introducing binding regulation on the handful of companies developing the most powerful AI models". However, it has yet to publish draft legislation on this topic.
The EU's AI Act
The European Union's AI Act, the world's first comprehensive AI law, came into force on August 1, 2024. The act aims to ensure AI systems used in the EU are safe, transparent, traceable, non-discriminatory and environmentally friendly.
The AI act categorises AI systems based on their potential risks, with different requirements for each category:
- Unacceptable risk: Systems deemed a threat to people's safety, livelihoods, and rights are banned
- High risk: Systems used in critical infrastructure, education, law enforcement etc are subject to strict obligations
- Limited risk: Systems such as chatbots have transparency obligations
- Minimal risk: Free use is allowed for most AI systems.
Other regulation
Copyright disputes have also broken out over the data used to train LLMs such as ChatGPT, with copyright owners arguing that their intellectual property has been used without their consent to train LLMs. A growing number of publishers, including The Financial Times, have reached licensing agreements with the owners of LLMs to allow their data to be used in return for a fee.
The US has not so far passed any federal laws to regulate AI, although some states have enacted or proposed laws governing AI. President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order in October 2023 that established guidelines for the development and use of AI by federal agencies. In the absence of specific legislation, at the federal level in the US AI is overseen using existing laws and agencies.
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