UK Watchdog Jumps on Board Wave of AI Regulations

The United Kingdom’s antitrust watchdog is the latest government entity calling for artificial intelligence (AI) regulations.

“AI has burst into the public consciousness over the past few months but has been on our radar for some time,” Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) CEO Sarah Cardell said in a Thursday (May 4) press release. “It’s a technology developing at speed and has the potential to transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth.”

She added in the release that it’s critical that British consumers and businesses can access the benefits of AI while still avoiding issues such as false or misleading information, which is why the CMA is launching a review of the technology.

“Our goal is to help this new, rapidly scaling technology develop in ways that ensure open, competitive markets and effective consumer protection,” Cardell said in the release.

According to the release, the review will examine how “the competitive markets for foundation models and their use could evolve” and look at risks and opportunities for competition and consumer protection.

The authority said in the release it also hopes to “produce guiding principles to support competition and protect consumers as AI foundation models develop.”

The CMA has given until June 2 to supply evidence for its probe, with plans to publish its findings in September.

As PYMNTS wrote last month: “The rapid development of AI capabilities, paired with its attractive industry-agnostic integration use cases, is already proving to be a challenge for regulators and lawmakers around the world as they race to address them.”

Those lawmakers include officials at the White House, who announced Thursday a meeting with the heads of four companies in the AI space as President Joe Biden’s administration prepares to tackle artificial intelligence.

The past few days have seen figures in the tech world warn of its risks, including Microsoft’s chief economist, Michael Schwarz, who said Wednesday (May 3) that it’s only a matter of time before AI is used illegally.

Schwarz’s comments echoed remarks earlier in the week by the “Godfather of AI,” Dr. Geoffrey Hinton, who resigned from Google to “speak freely” about potential risks that could be posed by the widespread integration of AI.

For all PYMNTS EMEA coverage, subscribe to the daily EMEA Newsletter.