Meta and Spotify blast EU decisions on AI

AFP | Paris

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A group of companies including Meta and Spotify blasted the European Union yesterday for its “fragmented and inconsistent” decision-making on data privacy and artificial intelligence (AI). The firms along with several researchers and industry bodies signed an open letter claiming that Europe was already becoming less competitive and risked falling further behind in the age of AI.

The signatories called for “harmonised, consistent, quick and clear decisions” from data privacy regulators to “enable European data to be used in AI training for the benefit of Europeans”. The letter takes issue with recent decisions under the 2018 general data protection regulation (GDPR). Meta, which owns Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram, recently halted plans to harvest data from European users to train its AI models after pressure from privacy regulators.