On Wednesday, 30 July, Google announced in a blog post that it was going to adhere to the AI Code of Practice (see EUROPE 13678/17). At the same time, the company was critical of [the code’s] impact on European competitiveness.
In the post—attributed to Kent Walker, the company’s president of global affairs—Google states that it is signing in the hope that the code will promote “European citizens’ and businesses’ access to secure, first-rate AI tools”.
The American company believes, “While the final version of the Code comes closer to supporting Europe’s innovation and economic goals [...]—we remain concerned that the AI Act and Code risk slowing Europe’s development and deployment of AI. In particular, departures from EU copyright law, steps that slow approvals, or requirements that expose trade secrets could chill European model development and deployment, harming Europe’s competitiveness.”
For its part, xAI—Elon Musk’s company (which includes the social network X)—announced in an X post on Thursday, 31 July, that it was only going to be signing the part of the code pertaining to safety and security.
The company considers that the other parts of the code “contain requirements that are profoundly detrimental to innovation and its copyright provisions are clearly over-reach [sic].”
Certain of the AI Act’s obligations will come into force on Saturday, 2 August (see EUROPE 13679/7). (Original version in French by Isalia Stieffatre)