BERLIN: OpenAI chief Sam Altman on Friday suggested European regulation could hold back the development of artificial intelligence (AI), while promising the US company would abide by new EU legislation.

At a panel discussion on AI at Berlin’s Technical University, Altman was asked directly about the EU’s “AI Act”, considered the most comprehensive regulatory framework for the emerging technology in the world.

“We will comply with the law and respect the wishes of the European people”, Altman said.

“There are benefits to different regulatory regimes,” the Open AI chief said, but added that “there are going to be economic impacts that will become societal impacts”.

“We want to be able to deploy our products in Europe as quickly as we do in the rest of the world,” Altman said.

It was “in Europe’s interest to be able to adopt AI and not be behind the rest of the world”.

The EU AI Act was passed in March last year. This week regulators gave guidance as to what types of AI tools will be outlawed as too dangerous.

They include tools that scrape online images to create facial recognition databases or allow police to evaluate criminal risk based solely on biometric data.

The United States is taking steps to loosen AI regulation.

Published in Dawn, February 8th, 2025