Google boss wants to weigh in on AI regulation in Europe

Visiting Brussels, as he does once a year, Sundar Pichai came to send a few messages on artificial intelligence (AI) to the European Commission, while the subject is unleashing pions all over the world.

The boss of Google saw in turn, Wednesday, the commissioners Margrethe Vestager (Competition), Thierry Breton (Internal market), Vera Jourova (Values and transparency) and Margaritis Schinas (promotion of the European way of life).

To all, he wanted to show his concern to “build an AI in a responsible way”, and to “ensure that as a society, we do things correctly”, as he wrote, the day before, in a column published in the “Financial Times”, with an extremely courteous tone.

It has been more than ten years since Google introduces AI across all of its products and the tech giant recently announced the transformation of its search engine to integrate responses generated by an AI, as a response to Microsoft.

A Pact on AI

For their part, the European institutions have a well-advanced AI regulation project that is making a lot of waves, on which Sundar Pichai clearly intends to influence. A legal framework could be adopted before the end of the year, but the law would not come into force for another year or two.

However, the EU would like to set up a form of “pre-regulation” of companies beforehand, by asking them to make commitments on fundamental questions, Margrethe Vestager told a few journalists on Tuesday.

“The question today is to discuss what we expect from companies, at a minimum, before the legislation comes into force,” she explained. “The growth potential is very significant. There is a strong incentive to put in place the necessary safeguards, so that there is real competition on how to deploy AI. »

At the end of his meeting with the boss of Google, Thierry Breton ured the press that the latter agreed to “work with all AI developers to develop a pact on AI, on a voluntary basis, before the legal deadline” for the entry into application of the future European law. The commissioner hopes to convince other European actors, or not, to join the movement.

Don’t slow down innovation

Sundar Pichai has always said that he is convinced of the need to regulate AI from the outset compared to other technologies, given the challenges that the technology entails.

But if he came to Brussels, it is also to share certain concerns. It would be particularly concerned to ensure that there is no overlap between the various European legislations, so as not to add a regulatory burden likely to slow down innovation.

Google, for example, took eighteen months to implement the GDPR – which celebrates its fifth anniversary this week – and the giant would no doubt not want to suffer the same fate when the European rules on the AI…

The specific measures on generative AI (such as ChatGPT), which the EU is considering in its future legislation, are also among the points on which the leader of Google calls on Europe to be nuanced.

Basically, rather than pure and simple regulation, Sundar Pichai would also and above all like the EU to focus on how to validate the models, ess their capacity or even test them in terms of safety.

Dialogue between Europe and the United States

Finally, the need for a strong dialogue between the Old Continent and the United States is also one of the priorities of the tech giant, for better consistency of future legal frameworks.

Sundar Pichai’s visit to Brussels comes just a few days before an important ministerial meeting of the Trade and Technology Council between the EU and the United States, the fourth of its kind, scheduled for May 30 and 31 in Sweden.

AI is one of the central topics of discussion, with the two continents ready to strengthen their cooperation in this area. The leaders of the G7 countries had already recently called for the development of technical standards to keep AI “trustworthy”.