Tech giant Meta and music streaming platform Spotify have expressed their opposition to European Union privacy regulations related to open source Artificial Intelligence.
CEO Daniel Ek, who heads both Meta and Spotify, shared a joint statement on their websites last Friday, expressing frustration with EU privacy laws that they believe are hindering progress.
Meta cited the lack of legislation from regulators addressing the handling of AI training data, which has prevented the company from utilizing public data from Facebook and Instagram. This delay, according to Meta’s blog post, means that the most advanced AI models won’t reflect the collective knowledge, culture, and languages of Europe, depriving Europeans of the latest AI products and technology.
Furthermore, Meta confirmed speculations that it would not offer its upcoming multimodal AI model to EU customers due to unclear regulatory guidance. This decision means that future AI models such as Llama multimodal, which can understand visuals, will not be deployed in the EU.
On the other hand, Spotify attributes its early adoption of AI technology to creating a tailored experience for each user, contributing to the initial success of the streaming service. Looking ahead, Spotify sees significant potential in leveraging open-source AI to benefit the industry, especially in helping more artists get discovered. They believe that a simplified regulatory structure would accelerate the growth of open-source AI and provide essential support to European developers and the broader creator ecosystem.