Meta to halt multimodal AI models in EU due to regulatory uncertainty, reports

According to a report, the company has decided not to offer its upcoming multi-modal AI model and future versions to customers in the European Union, citing a lack of clarity from European regulators. AxialThe models in question are designed to process not only text but also images and sound, and support AI functions on Meta platforms as well as in Ray-Ban’s smart glasses.

“We will launch the multimodal Llama model in the coming months, but not in the EU due to the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment,” Meta said in a statement to Axial.

Meta’s move follows a similar decision by Apple, which recently announced that it would not make its Apple Intelligence features available in Europe due to regulatory concerns. Margrethe Vesteger, the EU’s competition commissioner, criticized Apple’s move, saying the company’s decision was “a stunning, open declaration that they know 100 percent that this is another way to shut out competition where they already have a strong position.” Engadget reached out to Vesteger for comment on Meta’s decision.

The suspension of the EU market for Meta’s multimodal AI models could have far-reaching consequences – it means that companies that use them to build their products and services will not be able to offer them in Europe.

Meta said Axial that it still plans to release Llama 3, the company’s upcoming text-only model, in the EU. The company’s primary concerns stem from the challenges of training AI models using data from European customers while complying with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), the EU’s current data protection law. In May, Meta announced that it planned to use publicly available Facebook and Instagram user posts to train future AI models, but was forced to stop doing so in the EU after receiving a backlash from data privacy regulators in the region. At the time, Meta defended its actions, saying that the ability to train its models on European user data was necessary to reflect local culture and terminology.

“If we don’t train our models on public content that Europeans share on our services and others, such as public posts or comments, then the models and the AI ​​features they power won’t accurately understand important regional languages, cultures, or popular topics on social media,” the company said in a blog post. “We believe that Europeans will be underserved by AI models that aren’t informed by Europe’s rich cultural, social, and historical contributions.”

Despite reservations about releasing its multi-modal models in the EU, Meta still plans to launch them in the UK, which has similar data protection laws to the EU. The company has argued that European regulators need more time to interpret existing regulations compared to their counterparts in other regions.