Meta Joins Apple In Withholding Tech From The EU Over Regulation

Meta has announced it will not roll out its future multimodal AI models in the EU in response to the bloc’s data regulation.

Apple announced in June that it would not bring its Apple Intelligence features to the EU as a result of concerns over the Digital Markets Act (DMA). At the time, Apple made the following statement:

Due to the regulatory uncertainties brought about by the Digital Markets Act, we do not believe that we will be able to roll out three of these [new] features — iPhone Mirroring, SharePlay Screen Sharing enhancements, and Apple Intelligence — to our EU users this year.

Meta is following suit, saying in a statement to Axios that it has no intention of bringing its multimodal AI models to the EU, citing the same uncertainty.

We will release a multimodal Llama model over the coming months, but not in the EU due to the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment.

In addition to not bringing the AI models to the EU directly, Meta told Axios that EU companies will not be able to use the models, despite the fact that they are open source.

As the outlet points out, the UK has similar legislation as the EU, but neither Apple nor Meta have refused to roll out AI there. Meta chalked this up to EU regulators taking much longer to interpret and apply regulation to specific cases, meaning companies are in limbo much longer and risk higher fines once a decision is eventually reached.

The EU has been aggressively moving to regulate Big Tech, but is already experiencing significant push-back. Critics have accused EU regulators of trying to turn Apple’s iOS into another Android, rather than letting the two ecosystems compete against each other on their own unique merits—one walled off and protected, the other more open and free.

With companies now deciding to not bring technology to the EU—and with there being no legal requirement or ability to force companies to do so—regulators will need to decide if the bloc’s measures are backfiring. If companies refuse to bring advanced tech to the EU, the bloc could quickly find itself at a competitive disadvantage, compared to the rest of the world.

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