来源：《新科学家》
原文见刊日期：2023年5月20日
The race to roll out artificial intelligence is happening as quickly as the race to contain it, as two key moments last week demonstrate.
正如上周的两个关键时刻所证明的那样，推出人工智能的竞赛和遏制人工智能的竞赛一样迅速。
On 10 May, Google announced plans to deploy new large language models, which use machine-learning techniques to generate text, across its existing products. “We are reimagining all of our core products, including search,” said Sundar Pichai, the CEO of Google’s parent company Alphabet, at a press conference. The move is widely seen as a response to Microsoft adding similar functionality to its search engine, Bing.
5月10日，谷歌宣布计划在其现有产品中部署新的大型语言模型，该模型使用机器学习技术生成文本。谷歌母公司Alphabet的首席执行官桑达尔·皮查伊在新闻发布会上表示：“我们正在重新构想包括搜索在内的所有核心产品。”外界普遍认为，此举是对微软(Microsoft)在其搜索引擎必应(Bing)上添加类似功能的回应。
A day later, politicians in the European Union agreed on new rules dictating how and when AI can be used. The bloc’s AI Act has been years in the making, but has moved quickly to stay up to date: in the past month, legislators drafted and passed rules dictating the use of generative AIs, the popularity of which has exploded in the past six months. This includes a requirement to disclose the use of any copyrighted material in training such AIs. The draft text will be voted on in the European Parliament in June.
一天后，欧盟政界人士就如何以及何时使用人工智能的新规则达成一致。欧盟的《人工智能法案》酝酿了数年，但很快就跟上了时代的步伐：在过去的一个月里，立法者起草并通过了规定使用生成式人工智能的规则，在过去的六个月里，生成式人工智能的受欢迎程度呈爆炸式增长。这包括要求披露在训练此类人工智能时使用的任何受版权保护的材料。该草案文本将于6月在欧洲议会进行表决。
But Google, like Microsoft and other tech giants, seems to be paying little attention to what may soon become the world’s most dominant form of AI legislation. Although EU laws only apply in member countries, the size of the bloc means companies globally can end up complying with its rules, as has broadly happened with the roll-out of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation.
但与微软(Microsoft)等其他科技巨头一样，谷歌似乎很少关注可能很快成为世界上最主要的人工智能法律。尽管欧盟法律只适用于成员国，但欧盟的规模意味着，全球企业最终都可能遵守欧盟的规定，就像欧盟《通用数据保护条例》出台后普遍发生的那样。
How do we square this contradiction? “I hope I’m wrong, but it seems to me that these companies ignoring copyright issues is a power move,” says Carissa Véliz at the University of Oxford. “They are betting that their products are so seductive that governments will have to adapt to them, as opposed to these companies adapting their products to the rule of law.”
如何化解这个矛盾？“我希望我是错的，但在我看来，这些公司忽视版权问题似乎是一种权力之举，”牛津大学的卡里萨说，“它们押注的是，它们的产品非常诱人，政府将不得不适应它们，而不是这些公司让自己的产品适应法治。”
While some AI firms have set up agreements to license copyrighted material, others appear to be taking the approach of begging for forgiveness, rather than asking for permission. The EU’s AI Act may eventually force companies to formalise their use of copyrighted material, but how that will play out is unclear.
虽然一些人工智能公司已经签订了许可受版权保护的材料的协议，但其他公司似乎正在采取乞求原谅的方式，而不是请求许可。欧盟的《人工智能法案》可能最终会迫使企业正式使用受版权保护的材料，但这将如何发挥作用尚不清楚。