The use and fears of AI have now spread worldwide, including to the U.K. But can the U.K., or even the European Union, regulate American AI companies to their satisfaction before the companies decide to block the continent from the world’s most advanced technology?
And would the AI titans stomach the loss of business? The EU, along with the U.K., has a combined population of around 520 million people, about 170 million more than the United States.
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Meaning that delaying releases or pulling out of that area entirely would exclude one of the world’s largest business markets and could hurt their bottom line.
“I would expect selective restrictions to be more plausible than wholesale withdrawal. Britain should take that possibility seriously without allowing withdrawal threats to dictate public protections,” Giancarlo Frosio, chair in intellectual property and technology law at Queen’s University Belfast in Northern Ireland, told Straight Arrow.
European regulations
The biggest piece of legislation currently on the books for AI regulation in that part of the world is the EU AI Act.
It bans certain AI practices considered unacceptable and imposes increasing requirements on higher-risk systems. That includes transparency, documentation, human oversight and safety standards.
It also has rules for AI models such as ChatGPT, including requirements around transparency, copyright policies and safety testing.
“It’s a general-purpose set of rules and safeguards,” Fazl Barez, head of the Technical Safety and Governance Lab at the University of Oxford, told Straight Arrow.
In the UK, Frosio said it relies on laws already on the books for regulating AI. Those include the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), copyright laws and things of that nature.
However, just this week, the Joint Committee on Human Rights in the UK Parliament released a report calling for new legislation to address what they called the scale and seriousness of AI threats to humanity.
The committee laid out what they want to see in that potential new law.
It would take a risk-based approach, with stricter requirements for high-risk AI, including possible bans on certain uses and prior approval for systems posing serious risks. There’s also a call for mandatory transparency across the entire AI lifecycle.
“They also say there should be a dedicated AI regulator, and they called for better literacy amongst the citizens of the UK on AI,” Kay Firth-Butterfield, CEO of Good Tech Advisory, told Straight Arrow.
Controlling US companies
Silicon Valley is roughly 5,300 miles from London. But that doesn’t mean these U.S. companies don’t have to worry about what’s going on overseas.
“American headquarters do not confer immunity from applicable UK law,” Frosio said.
Some of those laws already being enforced apply to American companies, even if not specifically targeting them.
When the EU passed the GDPR, even American companies had to fall in line.
“It was actually also a big point of debate when the EU AI Act was being drafted, and the code of practice was being written because these big corporations can simply say, ‘well we will walk away if you try to impose these regulations on us,’” Barez said.
That could be tough on the bottom line of these major AI companies.
Some of the largest AI companies have already made sure to show their compliance with existing laws, including OpenAI and Google.
If new laws do come to fruition, the question then becomes whether a foreign country can actually enforce whatever rules it puts in place.
The answer to that also lies with money.
“There are very large fines that the European Union have put on companies like Meta and Microsoft and Google,” Firth-Butterfield said. “And they would be doing exactly the same with AI companies for breaching the EU AI Act. And the penalties are substantial.”
The EU recently fined Google $1 billion for breaching a competition law, Microsoft just recently made company changes to avoid a multibillion-dollar EU fine, and Meta got a nearly $1 billion fine for breaching antitrust laws.
AI companies will likely want to avoid cutting those kinds of checks even with their high valuations.
“It’s unclear exactly how hard rules and regulations may look like,” Barez said. “If one is to figure out what rules and regulations are in the first place, it’s unclear whether or not people can actually enforce them.”
Global concerns
All this comes as King Charles plans to bring together leaders from major AI companies for a summit to discuss all things AI.
Some of the biggest companies joining him will be Nvidia, Google, OpenAI and Anthropic.
The king is just the latest human to voice his concern over the potential damage of AI on humanity. That includes Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who leads one of the most valuable AI companies in the world.
The fears in Europe are similar to the ones in the U.S.
“I think there are similar worries all over the world at this point because the AI tools that are produced in America are being used around the world,” Firth-Butterfield said.
This summit aims to address just that.
“The King can bring sustained attention to questions that outlast electoral cycles,” Frosio said.
Similar to the U.K. Parliament, some members of Congress want new legislation to help regulate what some see as a dire threat to the human race.
However, President Donald Trump has called the threat of AI a “hoax.”
“In the United States, we have a much more laissez-faire approach from our federal government around regulation,” Firth-Butterfield said. “But if we look at the states, many of the states have started to regulate various pieces of AI.”
States have been working on their own regulations, including putting in safeguards, determining personhood, and more. That’s despite an Executive Order from Trump at the start of his term calling on the federal government to be the one to regulate.
“When it comes to these issues around safety and security and governance, there is a gap between the communities of people that think about these issues in the U.S., the UK, or Europe,” Barez said.
Experts who Straight Arrow spoke with all said at some point, it’s going to be a good idea to have more global cooperation in regulating AI.
“We do have international standards, but we don’t have a coming together of governments to agree that we shouldn’t have an arms race,” Firth-Butterfield said.
“I think the biggest gains will come from some sort of agreement between the U.S. and China, where each is afraid of the other winning the race,” Barez added. “So I think if these two can coordinate, the rest of the world will come together.”
Trump sees that race against China as a key reason he wants less regulation.
The U.S. still seems to have the advantage, but the competition has some concerned.
“Remember what we talked about when we were talking about nuclear,” Firth-Butterfield said. “Nobody wins out of a nuclear war. Everybody dies. It’s assured mass destruction, and that looks as if it’s similar with AI, and so, what’s the benefit of winning a race where everybody’s dead?”
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