| Today POLITICO published a sweeping, transatlantic look inside the global efforts to regulate AI, from reporters Mark Scott, Gian Volpicelli, Mohar Chatterjee, Vincent Manancourt, Clothilde Goujard and Brendan Bordelon. Below is an excerpt of the story, readable in its entirety here, focusing on the competing, sometimes fraught efforts to set a global standard for AI regulation that played out in Japan last year, just ahead of the Bletchley AI policy conference in the United Kingdom. A month before the conference in the English rain, policymakers had been frantically trying to make progress on the other side of the world. It was October, and Věra Jourová stepped off her 16-hour flight from Brussels to Japan exhausted. The Czech politician was only a few weeks into her new role as the EU’s top tech envoy, and her first international assignment would not be easy. Jourová’s mission was to sell Europe’s AI rulebook at a G7 meeting where Western leaders had gathered to try to design new global standards for the most advanced form of this technology, known as “generative AI,” the powerful development behind ChatGPT and rival tools. Brussels’ approach is enshrined in the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act, the world’s first attempt at binding legislation on the issue. Unlike the stance favored by the U.S., the EU’s vision includes bans on the most invasive forms of the technology and strict rules requiring companies like Google and Microsoft to be more open about how they design AI-based products. “Generative AI invaded our lives so quickly and we need something fast,” Jourová told POLITICO after taking the two-hour bullet train from Tokyo to Kyoto for the summit. At the three-day meeting in Japan, Nathaniel Fick had a rival pitch. As Joe Biden’s top digital diplomat, Fick, a former tech executive, proposed no bans or strict requirements. Instead, he pushed for a lighter-touch regime based mostly on voluntary commitments from industry and existing domestic laws. “People can expect the United States to weave in AI policy issues in everything we do,” Fick told POLITICO after the Kyoto summit concluded. “The frameworks, the codes, the principles we develop will become the basis for action.” In dueling meetings with G7 policymakers, tech company executives and other influential figures, Jourová and Fick made their cases. For the EU’s Jourová, the pitch was simple. Brussels had already marked itself out as the West’s digital police officer, with a flurry of regulations on everything from protecting consumers’ privacy to taming social media. The summit timetable was packed, with little downtime beyond some snatched cigarette breaks and rushed lunches in the cafeteria. Jourová argued that only Europe could deliver the necessary rigor. The EU, she said, could hit companies with blockbuster fines and ban the most invasive forms of AI — such as social scoring, which are complex algorithms tracking people’s movements, infamously used in China. “She came with a plan, and that was to convince us Europe’s rules were the only game in town,” said one of the people who met Jourová. Another official from a G7 country said Europe’s digital chief dismissed Washington’s alternative proposal for its lack of binding legislation. Fick’s counteroffensive relied on America’s undisputed position as the world’s powerhouse of AI development. A political stalemate on Capitol Hill means no comprehensive legislation from Washington is likely to come anytime soon. But the White House has already made a flurry of announcements. Last July, the Biden administration secured voluntary commitments from leading tech giants like Amazon to make AI safer. Then Biden issued an executive order, announced on Oct. 30, which empowered federal agencies to act. Fick’s pitch included criticizing Brussels’ legislation for imposing too many regulatory burdens on businesses, compared to Washington’s willingness to allow companies to innovate, according to two individuals who met Fick in Japan. “The message was clear,” said another Western diplomat who attended the Kyoto G7 summit. “Washington wasn’t going to let Brussels get its way.” Read the full story here.
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