TechDigits

Tech news
Thursday, Mar 28, 2024

Harmful AI rules: Now brought to you by Europe & Co., Inc.

Harmful AI rules: Now brought to you by Europe & Co., Inc.

Companies’ standards experts will help shape the EU’s crucial rules for artificial intelligence.

Companies, many of them from outside Europe, will play a key role in deciding the details of the European Union’s planned rules for potentially dangerous artificial intelligence. But corporate influence over decisions that risk human rights has some activists worried.

The EU’s new law on artificial intelligence aims to protect people from harmful AI by cracking down against discriminatory, opaque and uncontrolled algorithms that are increasingly being used to make life-changing judgments on immigration, policing, social benefits and schooling.

The rules don’t target “normal kinds of products,” but aim to halt “potential violation of constitutional rights, whether it’s about the use of biometric surveillance, discrimination or your access to employment and education,” said Iverna McGowan, the director of the Center for Democracy and Technology in Europe. She criticizes entrusting “private-sector dominated” European standards groups to shape the final rules.

But that’s the way the EU’s Artificial Intelligence Act is designed. It leans on industry forums, such as CEN-CENELEC and ETSI, to outline the technical instructions that ensure AI systems are trained on unbiased data and ultimately determine how much human oversight is needed and what needs to be done to prevent the software from going off-track.

France-based ETSI counts over 900 members, including tech giants like Microsoft and Facebook’s parent Meta Platforms as well as European defense companies like Thales and Chinese telecoms equipment provider Huawei. The ETSI group coordinating AI work is led by executives from Japanese telecoms company NEC, China-based Huawei and U.S. chipmaker Intel.

The ETSI organization has what researchers in the United Kingdom have described as a “pay-to-play” model that gives members paying higher subscription fees more votes in meetings. That makeup can give an advantage to larger and richer corporations, and to global companies able to sign up many national chapters as distinct members. Huawei, for instance, is represented by six members (from Huawei Technologies to HUAWEI TECH. GmbH).

CEN-CENELEC includes industry standards experts from 34 European countries, including some from non-EU countries such as the U.K., Serbia and Turkey. The group ultimately represents thousands of EU and non-EU companies.

However, some say that non-EU company participation will also draw them into embracing European industrial standards, since companies building highly risky AI systems will have to evaluate their own compliance by following global industry standards.


Conflict of interest


Standards organizations set the rules that make products and services work. They draw up technical specifications to determine the quality and safety of everything from teddy bears and batteries to complicated machinery and even data transfers. European groups like CEN-CENELEC and ETSI have been crucial in getting telecom companies to agree on global shared standards for mobile networks and cybersecurity.

But using the industry’s bureaucrats to figure out how to bring ethics into AI is a step too far for some when companies’ primary aim is to grab some of a global AI market — estimated to be worth more than €1 trillion by 2029.

“AI is a hugely profitable endeavor that is reshaping multiple areas of society and is not going to be fixed by a piece of legislation that treats it like a toy, a radio or a piece of protective equipment,” said Michael Veale, an associate professor in digital rights and regulation at University College London.

Companies focus on getting “products to the market but the AI Act seeks to limit harms,” said Kris Shrishak, a technology fellow at the Irish Council for Civil Liberties.

Engineers and technical experts in standards groups will likely struggle with ethical questions when they are tasked with translating an AI law into standards, Shrishak said. They will have to decide what constitutes fair and representative data sets for algorithms, the extent of documentation, transparency and human control for an AI program.

These decisions are critical. Flawed data at the heart of AI programs can reinforce social inequalities and prejudices and have far-reaching consequences like misdiagnosing diseases for minority racial groups and limiting job opportunities for women.
Ethical and geopolitical standards

Standards groups don’t see themselves as vessels of corporate influence. Indeed they see that their working methods show that they can reach “solutions that take all points of view into account,” according to Markus Mueck, Intel engineer and first vice chair of ETSI’s coordinating group on AI.

They’re not being asked “to start developing standards about ethics” but merely to implement them, said Constant Kohler, who manages the work on AI for CEN-CENELEC.

The European Commission said that it would have the last say in checking the standards drafted for the AI Act. It also wants European standards groups to involve human rights campaigners in the decision-making on harmful AI.

At the same time, standards groups are under pressure to overhaul how they work as geopolitical tensions brew over supply chains. The Commission is pushing standards organizations to limit the influence of large companies and reform their governance by 2022 to “fully represent the public interest.” Effectively, that means drafting more nongovernmental organizations and curbing the power of non-European companies.

Renew MEP Dragoș Tudorache, one of the European Parliament’s point persons on the AI rules, believes industry should continue to drive standard-setting, but wants rules to go a little further in banning companies controlled by some authoritarian regimes from industry standard-setting.

“Industry is not the enemy,” he said, but it now has “increased responsibility… in forging Europe’s digital path.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

TechDigits
0:00
0:00
Close
FTX's Bankman-Fried headed for jail after judge revokes bail
America's First New Nuclear Reactor in Nearly Seven Years Begins Operations
Southeast Asia moves closer to economic unity with new regional payments system
Today Hunter Biden’s best friend and business associate, Devon Archer, testified that Joe Biden met in Georgetown with Russian Moscow Mayor's Wife Yelena Baturina who later paid Hunter Biden $3.5 million in so called “consulting fees”
Google testing journalism AI. We are doing it already 2 years, and without Google biased propoganda and manipulated censorship
Musk announces Twitter name and logo change to X.com
The future of sports
TikTok Takes On Spotify And Apple, Launches Own Music Service
Hacktivist Collective Anonymous Launches 'Project Disclosure' to Unearth Information on UFOs and ETIs
Typo sends millions of US military emails to Russian ally Mali
Server Arrested For Theft After Refusing To Pay A Table's $100 Restaurant Bill When They Dined & Dashed
Democracy not: EU's Digital Commissioner Considers Shutting Down Social Media Platforms Amid Social Unrest
Sarah Silverman and Renowned Authors Lodge Copyright Infringement Case Against OpenAI and Meta
Why Do Tech Executives Support Kennedy Jr.?
The New York Times Announces Closure of its Sports Section in Favor of The Athletic
Florida Attorney General requests Meta CEO's testimony on company's platforms' alleged facilitation of illicit activities
The Poor Man With Money, Mark Zuckerberg, Unveils Twitter Replica with Heavy-Handed Censorship: A New Low in Innovation?
The Double-Edged Sword of AI: AI is linked to layoffs in industry that created it
US Sanctions on China's Chip Industry Backfire, Prompting Self-Inflicted Blowback
Meta Copy Twitter with New App, Threads
BlackRock Bitcoin ETF Application Refiled, Naming Coinbase as ‘Surveillance-Sharing’ Partner
UK Crypto and Stablecoin Regulations Become Law as Royal Assent is Granted
A Delaware city wants to let businesses vote in its elections
Alef Aeronautics Achieves Historic Milestone with Flight Certification for World's First Flying Car
Google Blocked Access to Canadian News in Response to New Legislation
French Politicians Advocate for Pan-European Regulation on Social Media Influencers
Melinda French Gates Advocates for Increased Female Representation in AI to Prevent Bias
Snapchat+ gains 4 million paying subscribers in its first year
Apple Makes History as the First Public Company Valued at $3 Trillion
Elon Musk Implements Twitter Limits to Tackle Data Scraping, but Faces Criticism for Technical Misunderstanding
EU and UK's Slow Electric Vehicle Adoption Raises Questions About the Transition to Green Mobility
Top Companies Express Concerns Over Europe's Proposed AI Law, Citing Competitiveness and Investment Risks
Meta Unveils Insights on AI Usage in Facebook and Instagram, Amid Growing Calls for Transparency
Crypto Scams Against Seniors Soar by 78% in 2022, Experts Urge Vigilance
The End of an Era: National Geographic Dismisses Last of Its Staff Writers
Shield Your Wallet: The Perils of Wireless Credit Card Theft
Harvard Scientist Who Studies Honesty Accused Of Data Fraud, Put On Leave
Putting an End to the Subscription Snare: The Battle Against Unwitting Commitments
The Legal Perils of AI: Lawyer Faces Sanctions for Relying on Fictional Cases Generated by Chatbot
ChatGPT’s "Grandma Exploit": Ingenious Hack Exposes Loophole in AI, Generates Free Software Codes
The Disney Downturn: A Near Billion-Dollar Box Office Blow for the House of Mouse
A Digital Showdown: Canada Challenges Tech Giants with The Online News Act, Meta Strikes Back
Distress in the Depths: Submersible and Passengers Missing in Titanic Wreckage Expedition
Mark Zuckerberg stealing another idea: Twitter
European Union's AI Regulations Risk Self-Sabotage, Cautions smart and brave Venture Capitalist Joe Lonsdale
Nvidia GPUs are so hard to get that rich venture capitalists are buying them for the startups they invest in
Chinese car exports surge
Reddit Blackout: Thousands of Communities Protest "Ludicrous" Pricing Changes
Nvidia Joins Tech Giants as First Chipmaker to Reach $1 Trillion Valuation
AI ‘extinction’ should be same priority as nuclear war – experts
×