Musk's xAI to sign chapter on safety and security in EU's AI code of practice

(Reuters) -Elon Musk's xAI on Thursday said it will sign a chapter on safety and security from the European Union's code of practice, which aims to help companies comply with the bloc's landmark artificial intelligence rules.

Signing up to the code, which was drawn up by 13 independent experts, is voluntary, and companies that decline to do so will not benefit from the legal certainty provided to a signatory.

The EU's code has three chapters - transparency, copyright and safety and security.

While the guidance on transparency and copyright will apply to all general-purpose AI providers, the chapters on safety and security target providers of the most advanced models.

"xAI supports AI safety and will be signing the EU AI Act’s Code of Practice Chapter on Safety and Security. While the AI Act and the Code have a portion that promotes AI safety, its other parts contain requirements that are profoundly detrimental to innovation and its copyright provisions are clearly (an) over-reach," xAI said in a post on X.

The company did not respond to a request outside regular business hours for comment on whether it plans to sign the other two chapters of the code.

Alphabet's Google has previously said it would sign the code of practice, while Microsoft's President Brad Smith has said that the company would likely sign it.

Facebook-owner Meta has said it will not be signing the code, saying that it introduces a number of legal uncertainties for model developers, as well as measures which go far beyond the scope of the AI Act.

(Reporting by Chandni Shah in Bengaluru; Editing by Mrigank Dhaniwala)