EU Lawmakers Call for Summit to Control ‘Very Powerful’ AI

A smartphone with a displayed ChatGPT logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken February 23, 2023. (Reuters)
A smartphone with a displayed ChatGPT logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken February 23, 2023. (Reuters)
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EU Lawmakers Call for Summit to Control ‘Very Powerful’ AI

A smartphone with a displayed ChatGPT logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken February 23, 2023. (Reuters)
A smartphone with a displayed ChatGPT logo is placed on a computer motherboard in this illustration taken February 23, 2023. (Reuters)

EU lawmakers urged world leaders on Monday to hold a summit to find ways to control the development of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems such as ChatGPT, saying they were developing faster than expected.

The 12 MEPs, all working on EU legislation on the technology, called on US President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to convene the meeting, and said AI firms should be more responsible.

The statement came weeks after Twitter owner Elon Musk and more than 1,000 technology figures demanded a six-month pause in the development of systems more powerful than Microsoft-backed OpenAI's latest iteration of ChatGPT, which can mimic humans and create text and images based on prompts.

That open letter, published in March by the Future of Life Institute (FLI), had warned that AI could spread misinformation at an unprecedented rate, and that machines could "outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace" humans, if left unchecked.

The MEPS said they disagreed with some of the FLI message's "more alarmist statements".

"We are nevertheless in agreement with the letter's core message: with the rapid evolution of powerful AI, we see the need for significant political action," they added.

The letter urged democratic and "non-democratic" countries to reflect on potential systems of governance, and to exercise restraint in their pursuit of very powerful AI.

A spokesperson for von der Leyen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Last week China's cyberspace regulator unveiled draft measures for managing generative AI services, saying it wants firms to submit security assessments to authorities before they launch their offerings to the public.

The Biden administration has also been seeking public comments on potential accountability measures for AI systems as questions loom about their impact on national security and education.

The European Commission proposed the draft rules for an AI Act nearly two years ago under which AI tools are expected to be classified according to their perceived level of risk, from low to unacceptable.

A parliamentary committee is debating the 108-page bill and hoping to reach a common position by April 26, according to two sources familiar with the matter.



WhatsApp to Start Showing Ads to Users in Some Parts of the Messaging App

A WhatsApp icon is displayed on an iPhone, Nov. 15, 2018, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. (AP)
A WhatsApp icon is displayed on an iPhone, Nov. 15, 2018, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. (AP)
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WhatsApp to Start Showing Ads to Users in Some Parts of the Messaging App

A WhatsApp icon is displayed on an iPhone, Nov. 15, 2018, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. (AP)
A WhatsApp icon is displayed on an iPhone, Nov. 15, 2018, in Gelsenkirchen, Germany. (AP)

WhatsApp said Monday that users will start seeing ads in some parts of the app, as owner Meta Platforms moves to cultivate a new revenue stream by tapping the billions of people that use the messaging service.

Advertisements will be shown only in the app's Updates tab, which is used by as many as 1.5 billion people each day. However, they won't appear where personal chats are located, developers said.

"The personal messaging experience on WhatsApp isn’t changing, and personal messages, calls and statuses are end-to-end encrypted and cannot be used to show ads," WhatsApp said in a blog post.

It’s a big change for the company, whose founders Jan Koum and Brian Acton vowed to keep the platform free of ads when they created it in 2009.

Facebook purchased WhatsApp in 2014 and the pair left a few years later. Parent company Meta has long been trying to generate revenue from WhatsApp.

WhatsApp said ads will be targeted to users based on information like the user's age, the country or city where they're located, the language they're using, the channels they're following in the app, and how they're interacting with the ads they see.

WhatsApp said it won't use personal messages, calls and groups that a user is a member of to target ads to the user.

It's one of three advertising features that WhatsApp unveiled on Monday as it tries to monetize the app's user base. Channels will also be able to charge users a monthly fee for subscriptions so they can get exclusive updates. And business owners will be able to pay to promote their channel's visibility to new users.