The U.K. government on Wednesday published recommendations for the artificial intelligence industry, outlining an all-encompassing approach for regulating the technology at a time when it has reached frenzied levels of hype.
In a white paper to be put forward to Parliament, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) will outline five principles it wants companies to follow. They are: safety, security and robustness; transparency and explainability; fairness; accountability and governance; and contestability and redress.
related investing news
15 hours ago
Rather than establishing new regulations, the government is calling on regulators to apply existing regulations and inform companies about their obligations under the white paper.
It has tasked the Health and Safety Executive, the Equality and Human Rights Commission, and the Competition and Markets Authority with coming up with “tailored, context-specific approaches that suit the way AI is actually being used in their sectors.”
“Over the next twelve months, regulators will issue practical guidance to organisations, as well as other tools and resources like risk assessment templates, to set out how to implement these principles in their sectors,” the government said.
“When parliamentary time allows, legislation could be introduced to ensure regulators consider the principles consistently.”
Maya Pindeus, CEO and co-founder of AI startup Humanising Autonomy, said the government’s move marked a “first step” toward regulating AI.
“There does need to be a bit of a stronger narrative,” she said. “I hope to see that. This is kind of planting the seeds for this.”
However, she added, “Regulating technology as technology is incredibly difficult. You want it to advance; you don’t want to hinder any advancements when it impacts us in certain ways.”
The arrival of the recommendations is timely. ChatGPT, the popular AI chatbot developed by the Microsoft-backed company OpenAI, has driven a wave of demand for the technology, and people are using the tool for everything from penning school essays to drafting legal opinions.
ChatGPT has already become one of the fastest-growing consumer applications of all time, attracting 100 million monthly active users as of February. But experts have raised concerns about the negative implications of the technology, including the potential for plagiarism and discrimination against women and ethnic minorities.
AI ethicists are worried about biases in the data that trains AI models. Algorithms have been shown to have a tendency of being skewed in favor men — especially white men — putting women and minorities at a disadvantage.
Fears have also been raised about the possibility of jobs being lost to automation. On Tuesday, Goldman Sachs warned that as many as 300 million jobs could be at risk of being wiped out by generative AI products.
The government wants companies that incorporate AI into their businesses to ensure they provide an ample level of transparency about how their algorithms are developed and used. Organizations “should be able to communicate when and how it is used and explain a system’s decision-making process in an appropriate level of detail that matches the risks posed by the use of AI,” the DSIT said.
Companies should also offer users a way to contest rulings taken by AI-based tools, the DSIT said. User-generated platforms like Facebook, TikTok and YouTube often use automated systems to remove content flagged up as being against their guidelines.
AI, which is believed to contribute £3.7 billion ($4.6 billion) to the U.K. economy each year, should also “be used in a way which complies with the UK’s existing laws, for example the Equality Act 2010 or UK GDPR, and must not discriminate against individuals or create unfair commercial outcomes,” the DSIT added.
On Monday, Secretary of State Michelle Donelan visited the offices of AI startup DeepMind in London, a government spokesperson said.
“Artificial intelligence is no longer the stuff of science fiction, and the pace of AI development is staggering, so we need to have rules to make sure it is developed safely,” Donelan said in a statement Wednesday.
“Our new approach is based on strong principles so that people can trust businesses to unleash this technology of tomorrow.”
Lila Ibrahim, chief operating officer of DeepMind and a member of the U.K.’s AI Council, said AI is a “transformational technology,” but that it “can only reach its full potential if it is trusted, which requires public and private partnership in the spirit of pioneering responsibly.”
“The UK’s proposed context-driven approach will help regulation keep pace with the development of AI, support innovation and mitigate future risks,” Ibrahim said.
Not everyone is convinced by the U.K. government’s approach to regulating AI. John Buyers, head of AI at the law firm Osborne Clarke, said the move to delegate responsibility for supervising the technology among regulators risks creating a “complicated regulatory patchwork full of holes.”
“The risk with the current approach is that an problematic AI system will need to present itself in the right format to trigger a regulator’s jurisdiction, and moreover the regulator in question will need to have the right enforcement powers in place to take decisive and effective action to remedy the harm caused and generate a sufficient deterrent effect to incentivise compliance in the industry,” Buyers told CNBC via email.
By contrast, the EU has proposed a “top down regulatory framework” when it comes to AI, he added.
Altimeter Capital CEO Brad Gerstner said Thursday that he’s moving out of the “bomb shelter” with Nvidia and into a position of safety, expecting that the chipmaker is positioned to withstand President Donald Trump’s widespread tariffs.
“The growth and the demand for GPUs is off the charts,” he told CNBC’s “Fast Money Halftime Report,” referring to Nvidia’s graphics processing units that are powering the artificial intelligence boom. He said investors just need to listen to commentary from OpenAI, Google and Elon Musk.
President Trump announced an expansive and aggressive “reciprocal tariff” policy in a ceremony at the White House on Wednesday. The plan established a 10% baseline tariff, though many countries like China, Vietnam and Taiwan are subject to steeper rates. The announcement sent stocks tumbling on Thursday, with the tech-heavy Nasdaq down more than 5%, headed for its worst day since 2022.
The big reason Nvidia may be better positioned to withstand Trump’s tariff hikes is because semiconductors are on the list of exceptions, which Gerstner called a “wise exception” due to the importance of AI.
Nvidia’s business has exploded since the release of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in 2022, and annual revenue has more than doubled in each of the past two fiscal years. After a massive rally, Nvidia’s stock price has dropped by more than 20% this year and was down almost 7% on Thursday.
Gerstner is concerned about the potential of a recession due to the tariffs, but is relatively bullish on Nvidia, and said the “negative impact from tariffs will be much less than in other areas.”
He said it’s key for the U.S. to stay competitive in AI. And while the company’s chips are designed domestically, they’re manufactured in Taiwan “because they can’t be fabricated in the U.S.” Higher tariffs would punish companies like Meta and Microsoft, he said.
“We’re in a global race in AI,” Gerstner said. “We can’t hamper our ability to win that race.”
YouTube on Thursday announced new video creation tools for Shorts, its short-form video feed that competes against TikTok.
The features come at a time when TikTok, which is owned by Chinese company ByteDance, is at risk of an effective ban in the U.S. if it’s not sold to an American owner by April 5.
Among the new tools is an updated video editor that allows creators to make precise adjustments and edits, a feature that automatically syncs video cuts to the beat of a song and AI stickers.
The creator tools will become available later this spring, said YouTube, which is owned by Google.
Along with the new features, YouTube last week said it was changing the way view counts are tabulated on Shorts. Under the new guidelines, Shorts views will count the number of times the video is played or replayed with no minimum watch time requirement.
Previously, views were only counted if a video was played for a certain number of seconds. This new tabulation method is similar to how views are counted on TikTok and Meta’s Reels, and will likely inflate view counts.
“We got this feedback from creators that this is what they wanted. It’s a way for them to better understand when their Shorts have been seen,” YouTube Chief Product Officer Johanna Voolich said in a YouTube video. “It’s useful for creators who post across multiple platforms.”
CEO of Meta and Facebook Mark Zuckerberg, Lauren Sanchez, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, and Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the inauguration ceremony before Donald Trump is sworn in as the 47th U.S. president in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda in Washington, Jan. 20, 2025.
Saul Loeb | Via Reuters
Technology stocks plummeted Thursday after President Donald Trump’s new tariff policies sparked widespread market panic.
Apple led the declines among the so-called “Magnificent Seven” group, dropping nearly 9%. The iPhone maker makes its devices in China and other Asian countries. The stock is on pace for its steepest drop since 2020.
Other megacaps also felt the pressure. Meta Platforms and Amazon fell more than 7% each, while Nvidia and Tesla slumped more than 5%. Nvidia builds its new chips in Taiwan and relies on Mexico for assembling its artificial intelligence systems. Microsoft and Alphabet both fell about 2%.
The drop in technology stocks came amid a broader market selloff spurred by fears of a global trade war after Trump unveiled a blanket 10% tariff on all imported goods and a range of higher duties targeting specific countries after the bell Wednesday. He said the new tariffs would be a “declaration of economic independence” for the U.S.
Companies and countries worldwide have already begun responding to the wide-sweeping policy, which included a 34% tariff on China stacked on a previous 20% tax, a 46% duty on Vietnam and a 20% levy on imports from the European Union.
China’s Ministry of Commerce urged the U.S. to “immediately cancel” the unilateral tariff measures and said it would take “resolute counter-measures.”
The tariffs come on the heels of a rough quarter for the tech-heavy Nasdaq and the worst period for the index since 2022. Stocks across the board have come under pressure over concerns of a weakening U.S. economy. The Nasdaq Composite dropped nearly 5% on Thursday, bringing its year-to-date loss to 13%.
Trump applauded some megacap technology companies for investing money into the U.S. during his speech, calling attention to Apple’s plan to spend $500 billion over the next four years.