European Union Lawmakers Call for an AI Summit

European Union flags flutter outside the European Commission headquarters in Brussels, Belgium, on June 5, 2020. (Yves Herman/Reuters)

European Union lawmakers on Monday warned world leaders about the threats of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) systems, urging them to hold a summit to discuss how to control its development.

The 12 members of the European Parliament (MEP), all working on EU legislation on this type of technology, called on President Joe Biden and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to convene the meeting, and said AI firms should be more responsible.

The statement came weeks after Twitter owner Elon Musk and more than 50,000 people signed a letter asking for a six-month pause in the development of systems more powerful than Microsoft-backed OpenAI’s latest iteration of ChatGPT, which can mimic humans and create text and images based on prompts.

That open letter, published in March by the Future of Life Institute (FLI), had warned that AI could spread misinformation at an unprecedented rate, and that machines could “outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace” humans if left unchecked.

The MEPs said they disagreed with some of the FLI message’s “more alarmist statements.”

“We are nevertheless in agreement with the letter’s core message: with the rapid evolution of powerful AI, we see the need for significant political action,” they added.

The letter urged countries to reflect on potential systems of governance, and to exercise restraint in their pursuit of very powerful AI.

A spokesperson for von der Leyen did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The Biden administration has been seeking public comments on potential accountability measures for AI systems as questions loom about their impact on national security and education.

The European Commission proposed the draft rules for an AI Act nearly two years ago under which AI tools are expected to be classified according to their perceived level of risk, from low to unacceptable.

A parliamentary committee is debating the 108-page bill and hoping to reach a common position by April 26, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters.

AI in Education

The artificial intelligence behind ChatGPT, the homework-drafting chatbot that some schools have banned, is coming to more students via the company Chegg Inc.

The U.S. educational software maker has combined its corpus of quiz answers with the chatbot’s AI model known as GPT-4 to create CheggMate, a study aide tailored to students, said CEO Dan Rosensweig.

“It’s a tutor in your pocket,” he said ahead of its announcement of CheggMate on Monday.

The software will adapt to students by processing data on what classes they are taking and exam questions they have missed, personalizing practice tests and guiding study in a way generalist programs like ChatGPT cannot, Rosensweig said. It will be available next month for free initially, Chegg said.

The release is poised to widen what pupils do with AI just as educators are grappling with its consequences. Last year’s launch of ChatGPT led students to turn in assignments written coherently by the chatbot, letting some sidestep coursework and forcing faculty to vet the integrity of the work.

AI in Video Editing

Adobe Inc. on Monday said its new video editing software used by film and television companies will incorporate AI tools.

The tools will let video editors do things like change the lighting in a shot from midday to sunset or generate background music just by typing in a few words of text to tell the system what to do. The tools build on a new system called Adobe Firefly that the company introduced last month for generating still images and text.

Adobe is riding a wave of interest in generative AI spurred by applications from OpenAI and Stability AI that allow users to create novel images with just a few words of description. But after Getty Images sued Stability AI alleging that the startup misused Getty’s copyrighted images in training its AI system, legal questions clouded whether the output of such AI systems can be used in commercial work.

Musk Allegedly Starts AI Company

Meanwhile, billionaire Elon Musk is working on launching an artificial intelligence start-up that will rival ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, the Financial Times reported on Friday, citing people familiar with his plans.

Twitter owner Musk is assembling a team of AI researchers and engineers, according to the FT report, and is also in discussions with some investors in SpaceX and Tesla Inc. about putting money into his new venture.

Musk has secured thousands of graphics processing units, systems that power the computing required for intensive tasks such as AI and high-end graphics, from Nvidia Corp., according to FT. Shares of the chip company, which declined to comment on the matter, gained on the news on Friday.

Musk last month registered a firm named X.AI Corp., incorporated in Nevada, according to a state filing. The firm lists Musk as the sole director and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk’s family office, as a secretary.

It was not clear if the firm is related to Musk’s reported AI start-up efforts.

Musk is one of the co-founders of OpenAI, which was started as a non-profit in 2015. He stepped down from the company’s board in 2018.

Reuters contributed to this report.