Live data from Hacker News

The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

wolfhf.medium.com

61–70 of 298 posts

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m assuming you’ve benefitted to some extent from GDPR making it harder for companies to laugh their way to the bank with your data, even if you don’t live in the EU. And to be clear, I pretty much agree with your sentiment; the EU is overzealous and the US is light-years ahead in digital tech - and not only or mainly due to regulation. But let’s not pretend the US culture of “just do it and inshallah” is all rainbo…

> With AI in particular there are quasi-existential risks lol, there really are not. It's hilarious to see the upper echelons of many government's unironically believing this. they should definitely keep an eye on the development, but as of yet it is not even close to an existential risk.

Geoffrey Hinton, Stuart Russell and other AI leaders are warning us that there are existential risks, if only due to the inevitable creation of autonomous murder machines by the military (Hinton and Russell are both worried about things beyond that, by the way). I’ll take their word for it and not only on the basis of their authority - they have very well put arguments.

OpenAI is also playing it safe to some extent, maybe to please the general public and serve the org’s own interests, or maybe they are genuinely concerned about real safety threats, who knows. At any rate their actions don’t align with your discourse.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#62

What the EU is doing is not working. The legislative effort is real, well intentioned, and groundbreaking. It reflects democratically the wishes of half-a-billion people that include some of the fairest and most sensible countries on the planet. So ignore the hallucinating tech bros. EU legislation is certainly in the direction of what a good digital society looks like. But there is no response on the ground. From th…

Well, GDPR seems to be working all right. Care to share any facts in support of your statements? AI Act's required audits by TÜV and like (somewhat similar to UL in North America) are going to have pretty straighforward "response on the ground".

you seem to imply that enforcing legislation means its "working". this is obviously a pre-requisite. legislation that is not enforced is a joke.

but as clearly stated in my comment, this is fighting the old model, not building a new one.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#63

> While the AI Act’s references to copyright issues in generative AI are still very vague and only stress how much of a grey area it is, requiring providers of large models to be more transparent about their sources seems not a bad thing as such. As many aspects of the act it will be seen how this works out in practice. If my license prohibits use of my work for ai training, or requires that any modified code include…

This feels like (yet another) extension of copyright. Whilst I'm not sure I completely disagree with you, I want people to acknowledge that copyright is not the natural state of the universe. Prior to (I think) 1790 there was no copyright and human beings managed minor things like, you know, the renaissance and stuff like that.

Copyright was invented and enforced and the results have been a mixed bag. It seems to suffer from a ratchet effect where the law only ever increases the scope to which copyright applies and never decreases it.

However intuitive your sense of your moral rights are, it's about the net benefit to society and we should be very careful what we wish for.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#64

In general I find the EU AI act quite reasonable. There are a couple AI uses that will be prohibited (most mentioned by the article, mostly manipulating people or dystopian government stuff). But imho the meat of the act is in categorizing many use cases as "High Risk", which comes with a list of requirements. Things like putting some effort in thinking about risks, into your training data, understanding biases, havi…

The effect is going to be that all the innovation happens elsewhere, big AI companies will develop outside Europe. And Europeans will only get to benefit as consumers, not as makers of AI. And the EU will take that as a reason to regulate even harder and then also somehow end up giving a bunch of money to its telcos. EDIT: My point is that regulation doesn’t just prevent “bad products”. The compliance overhead also p…

> The effect is going to be that all the innovation happens elsewhere, big AI companies will develop outside Europe.

Why though?

Like, most of the requirements listed in the AI act seem extremely reasonable and low-overhead, if not seriously meek. Given the immense budgets AI labs can call upon, why would "having to fill a form that says you made sure the AI wasn't racist" be a disqualifying factor?

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#65

The acceleration of the divergence of the EU from the United States with respect to cutting edge software will be a site to behold. One is neutering and the other is cultivating.

Same for GDPR.

Not a surprise all big tech is in US. If EU wants to play this card, US will get even stronger at keeping tech talent.

(I reside neither in the US or EU)

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#66

> While the AI Act’s references to copyright issues in generative AI are still very vague and only stress how much of a grey area it is, requiring providers of large models to be more transparent about their sources seems not a bad thing as such. As many aspects of the act it will be seen how this works out in practice. If my license prohibits use of my work for ai training, or requires that any modified code include…

> This would lead to a win win setup. Artists, developers, writers, lawyers and so on would need compensation for training content - one time or ongoing - leading to higher quality models, job growth and a superior ai product over all. I have been told information should be free, though.

According to terms and conditions. Ip is not information, it’s work. Pay for it or dont use it. I decide the terms of my own output not you, and certainly not a corporation that resells it and threatens me with unemployment.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#67

In general I find the EU AI act quite reasonable. There are a couple AI uses that will be prohibited (most mentioned by the article, mostly manipulating people or dystopian government stuff). But imho the meat of the act is in categorizing many use cases as "High Risk", which comes with a list of requirements. Things like putting some effort in thinking about risks, into your training data, understanding biases, havi…

The effect is going to be that all the innovation happens elsewhere, big AI companies will develop outside Europe. And Europeans will only get to benefit as consumers, not as makers of AI. And the EU will take that as a reason to regulate even harder and then also somehow end up giving a bunch of money to its telcos. EDIT: My point is that regulation doesn’t just prevent “bad products”. The compliance overhead also p…

Yeah, like food safety regulations, other places still won't abide. It's not like "other places still will allow abuse of their citizens" is a great argument for us to as well.

Safety regulations exist in every major industry, and sometimes it slows some progress for the sake of individuals. This isn't a bad thing.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>the EU has a history of crippling their native tech industry to the general detriment of the EU. It is quite possible that this will end up being one more nail in the coffin. The primary factor is brain drain. As many experts in geopolitics suggest, the European Union, in collaboration with Russia, could potentially rival, if not surpass, the United States in terms of power. However, it appears they are content to b…

EU and Putin together would be unstoppable…?

The EU is happy to deal with Erdogan. Well, maybe not happy, but willing. The only thing that puts Putin into a category of his own is the Ukraine war. Before that happened, pulling Russia closer to the EU and maybe making them a bit more moderate over the decades was the strategy. Compared anything that happened before and after, the USSR with its hostility towards the rest of Europe was an outlier, just an outlier that Putin seems to be fond of. Now it looks like we have to wait for Putin to leave his position to get back to good relations.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#69
post #42

Why do we assume evil? How do our unfounded decisions today affect the possibilities of progress? How easy will it be to repeal these laws when we find the harm they may cause? I would prefer to wait and see.

Because the results of the last few decades of tech optimism have been so utterly dismal? And all the other results of the neo lib deregulation dream which, we’re most of us are either quietly panicked or despondent about.

Re: The EU AI act is coming, this time for real probably

#70

In general I find the EU AI act quite reasonable. There are a couple AI uses that will be prohibited (most mentioned by the article, mostly manipulating people or dystopian government stuff). But imho the meat of the act is in categorizing many use cases as "High Risk", which comes with a list of requirements. Things like putting some effort in thinking about risks, into your training data, understanding biases, havi…

The effect is going to be that all the innovation happens elsewhere, big AI companies will develop outside Europe. And Europeans will only get to benefit as consumers, not as makers of AI. And the EU will take that as a reason to regulate even harder and then also somehow end up giving a bunch of money to its telcos. EDIT: My point is that regulation doesn’t just prevent “bad products”. The compliance overhead also p…

Fine. Promoting innovation as an ideologiy has become camouflage for mass exploitation. Most 'innovation' that happens in SV is either advertising nonsense or so new trick to avoid labor laws.

I've lived in both the USA and The Netherlands and I now live in The Netherlands. I recently had to renew my Dutch driver's license and the entire process so painless and quick. Compared to my experiences doing the same thing in both Virginia and California it was a lovely breeze. That's progress. That's innovation.

Don't even get me started on the byzantine nonsense that is the IRS versus the Belastingdienst. I'll take the Belastingdienst any day.

Americans wouldn't know real innovation if a walkable neighborhood arrived on a highspeed train and began eliminating healthcare bureaucracy.

Post reply on HN