An Irish regulator helping to police European Union data privacy launched an investigation Thursday into Google's artificial intelligence development.

The inquiry comes as the EU and other major regulators around the world crack down on big tech over a raft of issues including taxation, competition and disinformation.

The EU has also adopted the world's first sweeping rules to govern AI, which came into force in August.

"The Data Protection Commission today announced that it has commenced a cross-border statutory inquiry into Google Ireland," where the US tech giant has its European headquarters.

The probe will look into the "development of its foundational AI model", the DPC said in a statement.

The rise of AI has fueled excitement about its potential, with chatbots that show humanlike ability to answer questions to generate everything from essays to recipes and computer codes.

But the emergence has also sparked concerns about the technology taking jobs away from people and even posing an existential threat to humanity.

The Irish regulator said that its investigation "concerns the question of whether Google has complied with any obligations that it may have had to undertake" under the EU's strict General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR).

This would have been "prior to engaging in the processing of the personal data" of EU citizens related to the development of Google's foundational AI Model, Pathways Language Model 2 (PaLM 2).

"We take seriously our obligations under the GDPR and will work constructively with the DPC to answer their questions," a Google spokesperson said in response.

The Dublin-based watchdog said that "a data protection impact assessment, where required, is of crucial importance in ensuring that the fundamental rights and freedoms of individuals are adequately considered and protected when processing of personal data is likely to result in a high risk.

"This statutory inquiry forms part of the wider efforts of the DPC" and other regulators overseeing "personal data of EU/EEA data subjects in the development of AI models and systems," it added.

The European Economic Area includes the EU plus Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

Social network X recently committed to stop harvesting European users' personal data to train its Grok AI chatbot, while Facebook-owner Meta has delayed the release of its most powerful generative AI models in Europe, citing EU regulation.

Google describes PalM2 as a "next generation language model with improved multilingual, reasoning and coding capabilities".

Tech crackdown

The EU has sought to rein in big tech firms.

Companies will have to comply with the bloc's new AI regulation by 2026, though rules covering AI models like OpenAI's ChatGPT will apply 12 months after the law enters into force.

The DPC's announcement comes two days after the European Commission scored two major legal victories in separate cases that left Apple and Google owing billions of euros.

Putting an end to a long-running legal battle, the European Court of Justice ruled that the iPhone maker must pay 13 billion euros ($14.3 billion) in back-taxes to Ireland—home to the European headquarters of Apple, Meta, TikTok and X thanks to its low tax regime.

The court also upheld a 2.4-billion-euro fine against Google, one of a string of high-profile EU competition cases targeting the group.

The court dismissed an appeal by Google against the 2017 fine, slapped on the search engine for abusing its dominant position by favouring its own comparison shopping service.

In the United States, meanwhile, Google has this week faced the start of a major antitrust trial, with the government accusing it of unfairly dominating online advertising and stifling competition.

© 2024 AFP