AI concerns rise as UK opens investigation around generative AI – Times of India

Over the past five years, the continued growth and concerns around generative AI and language models have caught the eye of the UK government. A release shared by one of the regulators in the UK, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), claims that AI has “the potential to transform much of what people and businesses do.” So, the country has tasked its regulatory bodies (including CMA) to review the impact of AI.
The UK has asked the officials “to ensure that innovation in AI continues in a way that benefits consumers, businesses and the UK economy.” The investigation will reportedly review the creation and distribution of AI technology.
Regulators will also study how AI can impact five major areas of consumer protection: appropriate transparency and explainability; accountability and governance; safety, security and robustness; fairness; and contestability and redress. This will help them to learn how AI foundation models can or may impact both competition and consumer protections.
UK government’s take on AI
Commenting on the review, CMA chief Sarah Cardell said, “It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information. Our goal is to help this new, rapidly scaling technology develop in ways that ensure open, competitive markets and effective consumer protection.”
Last month, the UK invested £100 million (~$125.7 million) to launch a Foundational Model Taskforce. The UK government aims to create “sovereign” AI technology that will help the economy. However, this technology is expected to do so without falling into ethical and logistical problems that other programs have already faced.

The US has also invested $140 million towards publicly evaluating the effects of AI. CEOs of companies like Microsoft, OpenAI, Alphabet and Anthropic were also summoned to the White House.
AI’s rapid growth
Major companies including Microsoft, Google and OpenAI have made new advancements in AI. This has helped generative AI tools and learning language models like ChatGPT, Bing Chat and Google Bard to rise to new heights of popularity. These evaluations will determine whether checks need to be put on companies racing to adopt AI-generation tools and other model-based features.