We applaud the UK government’s commitment to responsible innovation in artificial intelligence with its new white paper (“Debate about AI needs to be more sophisticated”, Opinion, April 1). This follows similar moves by the European Commission and by the Biden administration.
Some US states have already started to rule on AI in various spheres, such as the famous restriction on using AI in hiring in New York. Europe’s AI Act, which is not yet in force, constitutes a unique set of rules for risk-based regulation of AI technologies. We remember when the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation was also a novelty. Today GDPR is a model for all similar legislations worldwide, probably with the vivid exception of China. So, the UK is just in time and in the near future we will see more of these attempts to regulate AI.
In each jurisdiction regulation follows a simple idea: that AI innovators are free to apply their creativity in any way and continue to change our lives with this unprecedented speed. However they have to be responsible and limit themselves in certain areas and they have to make sure that their AI Golems aren’t going off the leash and that people have the right to live in democratic and free societies and not in the digital Gulag.
Tony Petrov
Chief Legal Officer, Sumsub
London EC3, UK
