US Calls for Relaxed Approach to AI Regulation at G20 Gathering

The U.S. has reportedly urged G20 members to relax their stance on regulation of artificial intelligence (AI).

The American government made this argument Tuesday (Sept. 1) at a gathering of industry leaders and commerce ministers in North Carolina, Reuters reported.

That report notes that the U.S.’s goals are largely in keeping with the mindset of large AI companies, almost all of which are American firms, and that want less regulation or the chance to influence new rulemaking.

U.S. tech adviser Michael Kratsios, who is co-hosting the G20 meeting, called for countries to avoid drafting entirely new regulations for AI, and instead concentrate on coming up with rules for “novel” situations involving the technology.

He also urged the countries to invest in “foundational research to accelerate discovery” and boost commercial opportunities for new technology.

“Policymakers do not need to approach each innovation in isolation and should not treat every emerging technology as a first-of-its-kind policy problem,” he said.

According to Reuters, the gathering also included video addresses from Google ‌DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis, Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk.

Hassabis called on the G20 officials to establish safety tests for AI systems, while Zuckerberg said countries should not limit open-weight models. Musk blasted tech regulation in Europe, which he said “inhibits progress” for companies.

As Reuters notes, a United Nations panel recently issued a report warning that AI was developing much faster than the safety features surrounding it.

“The technology is transformative, but if the world keeps moving along this trajectory, humanity will fail to realize the gains it promises,” Maria Ressa, co-chair of the Independent International Scientific Panel on Artificial Intelligence, said in a news release accompanying the report. “The risks — to societies, to security, and to our species — are too high, and the forces driving AI forward are not the forces that will deliver its benefits.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote that Musk’s G20 appearance provided a glimpse of how quickly the digital side of the economy could develop if his predictions come even somewhat true.

Musk says AI could eventually boost global economic output by 20% to 30%, with robotics having an even greater effect. Musk forecast that there will be more than 1 billion humanoid robots within 10 years. His comparison of software and robotics was less reliant on those forecasts, PYMNTS added.

“Anything physical always takes longer than anything which is digital,” Musk said.