BRUSSELS—Silicon Valley executives and lobbyists like to say they embrace regulation. Now they’re launching a frenzy of lobbying on what they want that regulation to be—and Europe is set to be one of the first battlegrounds.
On Monday, Sundar Pichai, the new chief executive of Google parent Alphabet Inc., gave a policy speech in Brussels, which is poised to release a raft of new regulatory proposals for the tech business, including a white paper due next month on possible rules for artificial intelligence.
Mr. Pichai’s message to policymakers: “Sensible regulation must also take a proportionate approach” to artificial intelligence, “balancing potential harms with social opportunities.”
“There is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated. The question is how best to approach this,” Mr. Pichai said.
Silicon Valley companies have faced a growing backlash against their vast market power and their perceived abuses of it. Some complain the companies have created an ecosystem designed to vacuum up and weaponize consumers’ personal information. Other say they snuff out competition by buying or railroading would-be rivals.
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Hauled before legislatures and policymakers in the U.S. and Europe, tech companies’ response has generally been to call for some regulation. The question of course is what they would be willing to accept in practice. Proposals from the European Commission, the European Union’s executive arm, will likely provide an early testing ground for how these debates will play out.
“This new Commission is very focused on technology and asks a lot of important and legitimate questions,” said Christian Borggreen, vice president for Europe at the Computer & Communications Industry Association, a U.S.-based lobby group that represents Amazon.com Inc, Facebook Inc. and Google, among other tech companies. “We believe in a targeted regulatory intervention, rather than a one size fits all.”
Under the commission’s new president, Ursula von der Leyen, the EU is set to consider new digital-competition rules for the digital age and rules about the free flow of data inside the EU, Margrethe Vestager, the EU’s competition chief has now taken on an expanded portfolio, putting her in charge of proposing new digital regulations—giving her added influence.
Multiple executives are in Brussels Monday before heading to Davos, Switzerland, for the annual World Economic Forum that begins Tuesday. Brad Smith, Microsoft Corp. ’s president, is slated to meet with Ms. Vestager on Monday before giving a speech of his own about “the promise and perils of the digital age.”
Mr. Pichai, for his part, is scheduled to meet with both Ms. Vestager and Frans Timmermans, the commission vice president in charge of the Green Deal, a set of policies aimed at transforming the continent’s economy, including digital services such as cloud computing, into one that curbs greenhouse gas emissions.
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One EU proposal due by year end is dubbed the Digital Services Act. It would update—and perhaps abolish—decades-old protections that digital intermediaries now enjoy against some liability for harmful activity on their platforms. The idea is already gaining traction in several countries, with the U.K. pursuing its own legislation on Online Harms, and France debating a new law to combat hate speech.
EDiMA, a lobby group that represents Apple Inc., Amazon, Facebook, Google and Microsoft is proposing that new online-liability be coupled with a broader incentive framework that encourages companies to take action against content deemed inappropriate. “We get that it’s a concern. We’re willing to take our responsibility, but there has to be a balance,” said Siada El Ramly, the group’s director general.
Artificial intelligence could be among the thorniest topics. Businesses like Google see opportunities to profit through the use of deep learning and neural networks that can spot subtle patterns much more quickly than humans. The technology could allow businesses to save resources and time, with applications ranging from lowering factories’ power consumption to headhunters departments scanning resumes automatically.
Researchers and activists however say that such systems pose dangers. They risk codifying certain human biases, such as racism or sexism. They also could, by automating processes like facial recognition, enable mass surveillance.
Google and other companies have adopted their own principles to tackle these threats. But the EU is pushing ahead with potential regulations. An early draft of a whitepaper from the European Commission, leaked last week, suggests multiple options for regulating AI, including a temporary ban on using facial recognition technology in public spaces, though it isn’t clear which, if any, will be included in the final whitepaper.
Tech companies are engaging on the topic. The CCIA sent a letter on Monday to Ms.Vestager and other officials, urging a “risk based” approach on AI rules. Facebook, for its part, is organizing a panel at a privacy conference this week on what would constitute good AI governance.
Mr. Pichai for his part said the EU should start in part by building on existing rules, such as the General Data Protection Regulation, which already puts restrictions on the use of automated decision-making about individuals. He also urged the EU and U.S. to align their regulatory approaches. Of course that may raise a more difficult question.
“To get there, we need agreement on core values,” he said, according to the transcript.
Write to Sam Schechner at sam.schechner@wsj.com and Valentina Pop at valentina.pop@wsj.com
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2020-01-20 11:50:00Z
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