Donate today and get a Marketplace mug -- perfect for all your liquid assets! Donate now

Implications for U.S. tech companies as EU eyes AI regulation

Nancy Marshall-Genzer Feb 19, 2020
HTML EMBED:
COPY
European Commission vice president in charge for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova shakes hands with Mark Zuckerberg in Brussels, on Feb. 17, 2020. Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images

Implications for U.S. tech companies as EU eyes AI regulation

Nancy Marshall-Genzer Feb 19, 2020
European Commission vice president in charge for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova shakes hands with Mark Zuckerberg in Brussels, on Feb. 17, 2020. Kenzo Tribouillard/AFP via Getty Images
HTML EMBED:
COPY

The European Union released proposed regulations on artificial intelligence Wednesday, rules covering technology like facial recognition and autonomous vehicles that would have big implications for U.S. tech giants like Facebook and Microsoft.

The EU wants to be sure that there’s human oversight of artificial intelligence, and that AI systems use high-quality data.

University of Arizona law professor Andrew Woods said the thinking goes like this: “I want the technology to be trained on people in my community because then at least it will be as accurate as it could be, vis-à-vis our distinctive features.”

But how do companies build a representative database? Is Facebook forced to share its treasure trove of European faces? Maribel Lopez, founder and principal analyst of Lopez Research, said that would be a big deal for U.S. tech companies that sell this kind of data.

“This definitely has business model implications for large U.S. tech companies in terms of how they monetize today versus how they might monetize in the future,” Lopez said.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg was in Brussels earlier this week meeting with EU officials.

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.