The EU AI Law dead before being born due to opposition from the sector
At the beginning of this month of December, the EU announced, for the umpteenth time this year, that it now has the world’s first Artificial Intelligence (AI) Law ready (although it will not come into force for three years), after intense and tough negotiations between the member countries, to the illusory pride of the Spanish presidency in turn (1). I already referred to Europe’s real inability to impose its Law on the rest of the world, as well as its potential capacity to return the old continent to the Middle Ages, in figurative technological terms, a few months ago (2, 3). Just as I already recalled at the time, as a cold water for european ethnocentrists, that this is not the first Law worldwide, since the second economic power in the world, China, whose internal market is double the european one, already It has a previous Law (4). That being said, let the reader allow me to present, in this new brief reflection, one more — or rather complementary — element of weight, compared to the defense of the thesis that the new Law of AI is stillborn before its birth.
The burden of proof, in this case, is given to us by the sector of Venture Capital companies that finance AI projects, under criteria of economic profitability, and which, therefore, make global innovation feasible in practice AI. A business sector, whose international leading companies are mainly from the US and China, to which companies from Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, Singapore, and India are added, and from Middle Eastern countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia. and United Arab Emirates (5). A group of investors in AI — in which it should be noted that Europe only has the representation of a single company of French nationality — whose leading company in the ranking, the North American Andreessen Horowitz, has just published a statement in which it states that from now on they will get involved in Politics, supporting only those political candidates who align with their similar lines in the development of an AI without limiting regulations, as well as they will directly oppose those other candidates who intend to end the technological future (6). That is to say, and paraphrasing Cervantes, we have stumbled upon Capital!.
Such blatant declaration of principles on the interference of Capital in Politics should not surprise us, since there is nothing new under the sun. Not only because, in the case at hand, the world’s largest AI technology companies, such as Google, Meta, Microsoft, Apple, and OpenAI (which in turn are the world’s leading stock market companies), have already done so observed in recent times in their lobbying efforts against the EU with the clear desire to influence the final wording of the new AI Law (7) — pressure that has been shared by large European companies such as Siemens, Renault, or Airbus, among more than a hundred (8)-; but because History tells us that in the continuous struggle between Politics and Economy, the latter invariably ends up winning the contest sooner or later. And within the free market economy inherent to the western world, at least since the times of the Enlightenment, the ultraliberal postulates of Smith’s theory (the Market regulates itself outside of State intervention) always end up imposing themselves — due to greater intensity in the force exerted — to Keynes’s liberal postulates (the Market is incapable of self-regulation and requires the intervention of the State), that causes the continuous tension of the contemporary European Social Welfare States themselves. Also aware, as we have already stated, that the driving Capital of development and innovation in AI is mostly non-european.
Faced with this reality, it is worth understanding that there is no regulation that is valid without the capacity to be applied to practice, for which a real coercive power is required capable of combating anti-regulatory behavior (that is, an authority with sufficient capacity to impose compliance). And, to be honest, this is not the case of the old continent compared to the large AI companies that not only move the world, but are even redefining it in line with their own interests. A convincing example is found in the EU’s arduous attempt in its fight against monopolistic policies and in defense of the protection of citizens’ private data, which large AI companies deliberately and systematically skip, preferring — at worst the scenarios — pay the fines imposed upon them after a court battle rather than rectify their business policies (9, 10). And without forgetting that AI is evolving disruptively at hypersonic leaps with each passing day (remember that ChatGPT did not exist just two years ago), thus fulfilling the maxim that all legislation always lags behind social needs. In this sense, aware that AI mega-companies are exclusively North American and Chinese (11), I can only observe our Europe in a similar way to when I look at the ruins of Plato’s ancient Academy (cradle of democratic civilization) that lie abandoned in a lost grove of trees on the outskirts of the tourist circuit of Athens, as a simile of the lack of respect that today we Europeans wake up the two large economic blocs of the US and Asia that dominate the international trade of AI.
The future of AI will be as long as the profitability of Capital is quantitatively estimated, with the consequent abrupt transversal and irremediable social changes for all human activities, europeans included. Therefore, in the face of legal obstacles that the sector may encounter in its development, such as the new EU AI Law, large AI companies will provide more Capital to strengthen their armies of lawyers and its reserves for judicial contingencies, as part of its assumed strategies regarding business risk management. Well, as Quevedo already said six centuries ago, powerful gentleman is Mr. Money. And faced with the dilemma of practical Ethics in its multiple and diverse applications, the large AI firms have long since ruthlessly plundered their own ethics departments (12), turning computer engineers de facto -under business guidelines- into the new moralists of the world to come (13).
The exponential growth of the hegemony of AI in society, which is the same as alluding to the new empire of large companies in the sector over it, is not only on the way to redefining Market Capitalism of free competition — as it was we know — in an oligopolistic Market, but also to reformulate Democratic States into Technocratic States where fundamental social rights will end up being subordinated to technological guiding principles, as can already be seen in terms of labor rights (14). A process in which, in fact, we are already immersed under the silent but effective boiled frog syndrome. Given this panorama, there will be those who consider that the possible sectoral regulatory solution could be in the creation of an International AI Court with real executive capacity (similar to the International Criminal Court in La Haya), under the protection of global regulations as opposed to the weak local initiatives such as the new EU Law, which is not only unviable due to the ethical discrepancies between the great economic powers such as the US and China (remembering that Ethics is not a universal value but rather a geographical and cultural one), but even more because the oligopolistic hegemony of the sector turns large AI companies into judge and jury, to the discredit of political states. Or, in other words, the AI sector has become a global State, in a progressive consolidation of its power to restructure the entire consumer and service society, which operates above and within the national States themselves.
That being said, as a humanist, I can only applaud the willful and obligatory attempt of our European legislators to regulate AI, in defense of the social and democratic values of law that constitute our ancient civilization. But as a philosopher, I cannot ignore the Reality Principle in which we live, from whose logical deduction it is inferred that the new european AI Law is dead before its birth. To think otherwise is an entelechy of a self-congratulatory idealism typical of european ethnocentrists, who persist in believing that we are the navel of the world under the effects of the collective disorder of an attached nostalgia for times that no longer exist.
References
(1) The Commission welcomes the political agreement on the Artificial Intelligence Law. European Commission, December 9, 2023 https://acortar.link/WBAJ3Y
(2) Can Europe force its new AI law on the rest of the world?. Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, May 17, 2023 https://acortar.link/bi6cLD
(3) EU AI Law may return Europe to the Middle Ages. Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, June 28, 2023 https://acortar.link/rw3J3p
(4) Administrative Measures for Generative Artificial Intelligence Services. State Internet Information Office. Government of China, April 11, 2023 https://acortar.link/4DEcRU
(5) The 66 main managers of venture capital companies by assets managed. Sovereign Wealth Fund Institute, 2023 https://acortar.link/ZiRpSD
(6) Politics and the future. Ben Horowitz. Andreessen Horowitz, December 14, 2023 https://acortar.link/uc9ZKt
(7) OpenAI pressured the EU to reduce AI regulation. Time, June 20, 2023 https://acortar.link/ghjs8e
(8) More than 150 large European companies ask the EU to “review” its proposed Artificial Intelligence law. Silvia Ayuso. El País, June 30, 2023 https://acortar.link/dVFQ41
(9) Europe exceeds the barrier of 2,000 million in penalties for non-compliance with the RGPD in more than 1,500 cases. CMS Law, May 2023 https://acortar.link/TBNXSH
(10) GDPR compliance monitoring report. Numbers and Figures 2018–2023. CMS Law, May 2023 https://acortar.link/r7tA2k
(11) The 13 Artificial Intelligence Companies with the Most Future. Robotoid, 2023 https://acortar.link/4sHagy
(12) To the Roboethics, cut off their heads!. Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, May 10, 2023 https://acortar.link/yzsoXt
(13) World Ethics cannot be in the hands of computer engineers. Jesús A. Mármol. Bitácora de un Buscador, November 6, 2019 https://acortar.link/9OxDcG
(14) The 3 big changes that AI brings to the Labor Market. Jesús A. Mármol. Medium, May 25, 2023 https://acortar.link/t5yXCs
