Google to sign EU's AI code of practice despite concerns

By Foo Yun Chee

BRUSSELS (Reuters) -Alphabet's Google will sign the European Union's code of practice which aims to help companies comply with the bloc's landmark artificial intelligence rules, its global affairs president said in a blog post on Wednesday, though he voiced some concerns.

The voluntary code of practice, drawn up by 13 independent experts, aims to provide legal certainty to signatories on how to meet requirements under the Artificial Intelligence Act (AI Act),  such as issuing summaries of the content used to train their general-purpose AI models and complying with EU copyright law.

"We do so with the hope that this code, as applied, will promote European citizens' and businesses' access to secure, first-rate AI tools as they become available," Kent Walker, who is also Alphabet's chief legal officer, said in the blog post.

He added, however, that Google was concerned that the AI Act and code of practice risk slowing Europe's development and deployment of AI.

"In particular, departures from EU copyright law, steps that slow approvals, or requirements that expose trade secrets could chill European model development and deployment, harming Europe's competitiveness," Walker said.

Microsoft will likely sign the code, its president, Brad Smith, told Reuters earlier this month, while Meta Platforms declined to do so and cited the legal uncertainties for model developers.

The European Union enacted the guardrails for the use of artificial intelligence in an attempt to set a potential global benchmark for a technology used in business and everyday life and dominated by the United States and China.

(Reporting by Foo Yun Chee in Brussels; Editing by Matthew Lewis)