This is a pivotal moment for technology. Artificial intelligence (AI) has the potential to change the world by increasing human productivity, accelerating scientific progress, and adding trillions of dollars to the global economy.
But as with any revolutionary advancement, some companies are better positioned than others, and a divide is already beginning to emerge between those who can build with this incredible technology and those who can't. That's why a key opportunity for European organizations is open-source AI, where the weights are publicly available with permissive licenses. This will avoid concentrating power in the hands of a few large companies, creating a level playing field, much like the Internet was before.
The internet runs largely on open source technology, and so do most of the major technology companies. We believe the next generation of ideas and startups will be built on open source AI because it enables developers to adopt the latest innovations at a lower cost and gives organizations more control over their data. This is the best way to leverage AI to drive progress and create economic opportunity and security for all.
Meta has open-sourced many of its AI technologies, including its state-of-the-art Llama large-scale language model, and public agencies and researchers are already using these models to speed up medical research and preserve languages. Europe is particularly well-positioned to make the most of this wave of open source AI, as it has more open source developers than the United States. But a fragmented regulatory structure riddled with inconsistent implementations is stifling innovation and holding developers back. Instead of clear rules informing and guiding how companies do business across the continent, our industry faces overlapping regulations and inconsistent guidance on how to comply with them. Without urgent change, European businesses, academia, and other stakeholders risk missing out on the next wave of technology investment and economic growth.
Spotify is proud to be recognized as a European technology success story, but we are also very aware that we are one of very few. Looking back, it is clear that our early investments in AI have built us into where we are today – delivering personalized experiences for our users and discovering billions of artists and creators around the world. As we look to the future of streaming, we see great potential for the use of open source AI to benefit the industry. This is especially important in terms of how AI can help discover more artists. Simplifying regulatory structures will not only accelerate the growth of open source AI, but will also provide important support for the European developer and broader creator ecosystem that contributes to and thrives on these innovations.
While regulation of known harms is necessary, preemptive regulation of theoretical harms to emerging technologies such as open source AI stifles innovation. Europe's risk-averse and complex regulation could prevent big bets from being leveraged for big gains.
Take the uneven application of the EU's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) as an example. The landmark directive was meant to harmonize data uses and flows, but EU privacy regulators have created delays and uncertainty, unable to agree on how to apply the law. For example, Meta has been told to delay training its models on content publicly shared by adults on Facebook and Instagram, not because it has broken the law, but because regulators have not agreed 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 will not reflect Europe's collective knowledge, culture, and language, and Europeans will not be able to use the latest AI products.
These concerns aren't just theoretical: Given the current regulatory uncertainty, Meta can't release new models such as Llama Multimodal, which has image understanding capabilities, meaning European organizations don't have access to the latest open source technology and European citizens can only use AI built for others.
The harsh reality is that laws enacted to increase European sovereignty and competitiveness are having the opposite effect. And this is not unique to our industry: many European chief executives across a range of industries say a complex and inconsistent regulatory environment is one of the reasons for the continent's lack of competitiveness.
Europe should take advantage of its single, yet diverse, market and simplify and harmonize regulations. This is evident in the widening gap between the number of tech leaders from Europe and those from the US and Asia. This gap also extends to unicorns and other start-ups. Europe needs to make it easier to start great companies and do a better job of attracting talent. Many of the best and brightest minds in AI choose to work outside Europe.
This means Europe needs a new approach, with clearer policies and more consistent enforcement. With the right regulatory environment, the right ambition, and world-class AI talent, the EU has a real chance to lead the next generation of tech 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 won't limit the possibilities that we're 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 and empowering people and providing access to new technologies.
While we can hope that these laws will become more sophisticated over time, we also know that technology evolves rapidly. On current trends, Europe will miss this once-in-a-generation opportunity because time is running out, unless Europe is willing to risk falling further behind.
Mark Zuckerberg is the founder and CEO of Meta. Daniel Ek is the founder and CEO of Spotify.
First published in The Economist © The Economist, London, 2024
