Below is the article published on The Economist in which Mark Zuckerberg and Daniel Ek explain why Europe should embrace open source artificial intelligence.
This is a momentous moment in technology. Artificial intelligence has the potential to transform the world, increasing human productivity, accelerating scientific progress, and adding trillions of dollars to the global economy.
But, as with any innovative leap forward, some are better positioned than others to benefit. The gaps between those who have access to this amazing technology and those who don’t are already starting to become apparent. That’s why a key opportunity for European organizations is open source AI. This ensures that power is not concentrated among a few large players.
The Internet runs largely on open source technologies, and so do most major tech companies. We believe the next generation of ideas and startups will be built on open source AI, because it allows developers to embed the latest innovations at low cost and gives institutions more control over their data. This is the best chance to leverage AI to drive progress and create economic opportunity and security for all.
Meta open sources many of its AI technologies, including its large language models (Llama), and public institutions and researchers are already using these models to accelerate medical research and preserve languages. With more open source developers than the United States, Europe is particularly well-positioned to capitalize on this wave of open source AI. However, its fragmented regulatory structure, riddled with inconsistent implementations, hampers innovation and holds developers back. Instead of clear rules that inform and guide how companies do business across the continent, our industry faces overlapping regulations and illogical guidelines on how to comply. Without urgent change, European companies, academics, and others risk missing out on the next wave of technology investment and economic growth opportunities.
Spotify is proud to be considered a European technology success, but we are also well aware that we are still one of the few. Looking back, it is clear that our early investment in AI has made the company what it is today: a personalized experience for every user that has led to billions of discoveries for artists and creators around the world. As we look to the future of streaming, we see huge potential in using open source AI to benefit the industry. This is especially important when it comes to how AI can help more artists get discovered. A streamlined regulatory framework would not only accelerate the growth of open source AI, but would also provide crucial support for European developers and the broader creator ecosystem that contributes to and thrives on these innovations.
Regulating against known harms is necessary, but preemptive regulation of theoretical harms for nascent technologies like open-source AI will stifle innovation. Europe’s complex and risk-averse regulation could prevent it from capitalizing on big bets that can translate into big rewards.
Take the uneven application of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). This landmark directive was intended to harmonize the use and flow of data, but instead EU privacy regulators are creating delays and uncertainty and failing to agree on how the law should be applied. For example, Meta was told to delay training its models on content shared publicly by adults on Facebook and Instagram, not because it broke a law, but because regulators couldn’t agree on how to proceed. In the short term, delaying the use of data that is routinely used in other regions means that the most powerful AI models won’t reflect Europe’s collective knowledge, culture, and languages, and Europeans won’t be able to use the latest AI products.
These concerns are not theoretical. Given the current regulatory uncertainty, Meta will not be able to release upcoming models such as Llama multimodal, which has the ability to understand images. This means that European organizations will not be able to access the latest open source technologies and European citizens will end up with an AI created for someone else.
The stark reality is that laws designed to increase European sovereignty and competitiveness are having the opposite effect. This is not limited to our industry: many European CEOs, across a range of sectors, cite a complex and inconsistent regulatory environment as one of the reasons for the continent’s lack of competitiveness.
Europe should simplify and harmonize regulations while taking advantage of a single but diverse market. Just look at the growing gap between the number of homegrown European tech leaders and those from America and Asia, a gap that extends to unicorns and other startups. Europe must make it easier to start great companies and do a better job of retaining its talent. Many of its best and brightest minds in AI choose to work outside Europe.
In short, Europe needs a new approach with clearer policies and more consistent enforcement. With the right regulatory environment, combined with the right ambition and some of the best AI talent in the world, the EU would have a real chance of leading the next generation of technological innovation.
We believe that open source AI can help European organizations make the most of this new technology by leveling the playing field, and we hope that the EU will not limit the possibilities that we are only just beginning to explore. While Spotify and Meta use AI in different ways, we agree that thoughtful, clear and consistent regulation can foster competition and innovation, while protecting people and giving them access to new technologies that empower them.
While we can all hope that these laws will become more refined over time, we also know that technology moves quickly. On its current course, Europe will miss this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Because the one thing Europe doesn’t have, unless it wants to risk falling even further behind, is time.