The UK and US have intervened in the race to develop ever more powerful artificial intelligence (AI) technology, as the British competition watchdog launched a review of the sector and the White House advised tech firms of their fundamental responsibility to develop safe products.
Regulators are under mounting pressure to intervene, as the emergence of AI-powered language generators such as ChatGPT raises concerns about the potential spread of misinformation, a rise in fraud and the impact on the job market, with Tesla Inc CEO Elon Musk among nearly 30,000 signatories to a letter published last month urging a pause in significant projects.
The British Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on Thursday said it would look at the underlying systems — or foundation models — behind AI tools.
Photo: Bloomberg
The initial review, described by one legal expert as a “pre-warning” to the sector, is scheduled to publish its findings in September.
On the same day, the US government announced measures to address the risks in AI development, as US Vice President Kamala Harris met chief executives at the forefront of the industry’s rapid advances.
In a statement, the White House said firms developing the technology had a “fundamental responsibility to make sure their products are safe before they are deployed or made public.”
The meeting capped a week during which a succession of scientists and business leaders issued warnings about the speed at which the technology could disrupt established industries.
On Monday, Geoffrey Hinton, the “godfather of AI,” quit his position at Google owner Alphabet Inc to speak more freely about the technology’s dangers, while Patrick Vallance, an outgoing scientific adviser to the British Government, urged ministers to “get ahead” of the profound social and economic changes that could be triggered by AI, saying the impact on jobs could be as big as that of the Industrial Revolution.
CMA Chief Executive Sarah Cardell said AI had the potential to “transform” the way businesses competed, but that consumers must be protected.
“AI has burst into the public consciousness over the past few months, but has been on our radar for some time,” she said. “It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers, while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information.”
ChatGPT and Google’s rival Bard service are prone to delivering false information in response to users’ prompts, while concerns have been raised about AI-generated voice scams.
NewsGuard Technologies Inc, which operates a browser extension that rates the credibility of news and information Web sites, this week said that chatbots pretending to be journalists were running almost 50 AI-generated “content farms.”
The British watchdog’s review would look at how the markets for foundation models could evolve, what opportunities and risks there are for consumers and competition, and formulate “guiding principles” to support competition and protect consumers.
The leading players in AI are Microsoft Corp, ChatGPT developer OpenAI — in which Microsoft is an investor — and Google, which owns a world-leading AI business in UK-based DeepMind, while leading AI start-ups include Anthropic PBC and Stability AI Inc.
Leading AI developers have also agreed to their systems being publicly evaluated at this year’s Defcon 31 cybersecurity conference. Companies that have agreed to participate include OpenAI, Google, Microsoft and Stability AI.
“This independent exercise will provide critical information to researchers and the public about the impacts of these models,” the White House said.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
RSS