OpenAI CEO Reverses Threat to Leave Europe Due to Regulations

OpenAI plans to continue operating in Europe, CEO Sam Altman tweeted Friday (May 26).

Altman had told Reuters on Wednesday (May 24) that the ChatGPT creator might leave Europe if the AI Act being developed by the European Union (EU) overregulates the technology.

His Friday tweet came after a series of meetings with European leaders.

“Very productive week of conversations in Europe about how to best regulate AI! We are excited to continue to operate here and of course have no plans to leave,” Altman said in his tweet.

One disagreement OpenAI had with European regulators centered on the disclosure of data used to train its artificial intelligence (AI) model, GPT-4. Regulators said it should be disclosed to show if the material was copyrighted and to demonstrate that the developer is trustworthy, while OpenAI said there were competitive and safety reasons for not doing so, Reuters reported Friday.

OpenAI also clashed with regulators in Italy in March and April.

Italy became the first Western country to outlaw ChatGPT-4 after its Data Protection Authority announced a probe of the chatbot’s alleged breach of the General Data Protection Regulation privacy rules and age-verification practices.

A month later, in April, OpenAI said the chatbot was again available in Italy after it had fulfilled the demands of the country’s data protection authority.

On Monday (May 22), Altman and two other OpenAI executives — President Greg Brockman and Chief Scientist Ilya Sutskever — published a blog post that said it’s time to start thinking about the governance of future AI systems.

In their post, the authors said any regulations should not be applied to the development of AI models below a certain threshold of capability.

They suggested that the leading development efforts in AI be coordinated to limit the rate of growth per year in AI capability, that an international authority be formed to monitor AI development efforts and restrict those above a certain capability, and that technical capability be developed to make superintelligence safe.

Another leader in the AI field, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, also met with European leaders this week.

European Commission (EC) Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton said in a Wednesday tweet that he and Pichai met and agreed that there’s a need for an “AI Pact” ahead of the AI Act that is now being developed by the EU.