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Meta quickly shifted away from the metaverse to generative artificial intelligence, and now it’s pumping the brakes on some of its efforts amid regulatory scrutiny.
On Wednesday, Meta said it was pausing the use of its generative AI tools in Brazil due to opposition from the country’s government over the company’s privacy policy on personal data and AI, according to Reuters. Meta was banned from training its AI models on Brazilians’ personal data by the country’s National Data Protection Authority (ANPD) earlier this month.
The Facebook-owner had updated its privacy policy in May to give itself permission to train AI on public Facebook, Messenger, and Instagram data in Brazil. The ANPD said Meta’s privacy policy has “the imminent risk of serious and irreparable or difficult-to-repair damage to the fundamental rights of the affected data subjects,” according to the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, Meta has decided to not release its upcoming and future multimodal AI models in the European Union “due to the unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment,” the company said in a statement shared with Axios. The company’s decision follows Apple, which said in June it would likely not roll out its new Apple Intelligence and other AI features in the bloc due to the Digital Markets Act.
Even though Meta’s multimodal models will be under an open license, companies in Europe will not be able to use them over the company’s decision, Axios reported. And companies outside of the bloc could reportedly be blocked from offering products and services on the continent that use Meta’s models. However, Meta has a larger, text-only version of its Llama 3 model that will be made available in the EU when it’s released, the company told Axios.
In June, Meta said it would delay training its large language models on public data from Facebook and Instagram users in the European Union after facing pushback from the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC).
“This is a step backwards for European innovation, competition in AI development and further delays bringing the benefits of AI to people in Europe,” Meta said.