Meta Halts AI Training in EU, Brazil Amid Regulatory Concerns

Meta's generative AI efforts have encountered regulatory challenges in the EU and Brazil as regulators have taken issue with the company’s data training practices.

Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram, won't be introducing its multimodal AI models to European users, citing a lack of clarity around data rules.

The EU’s privacy watchdog requested the social media firm voluntarily pause training efforts of all future AI models using user data from European users.

Rob Sherman, Meta’s deputy privacy officer and vice president for policy, confirmed to FT that the European Data Protection Supervisor contacted the company and that it is complying with the request for now.

Meta will also withhold its next multimodal AI model, including future multimodal systems, from European products and services. Sherman said this could mean, however, that EU users could miss out on new AI features like in its Meta AI chatbot.

“If jurisdictions can’t regulate in a way that enables us to have clarity on what’s expected, then it’s going to be harder for us to offer the most advanced technologies in those places…  it is a realistic outcome that we’re worried about,” Sherman told the FT. 

The company has been working on a variety of multimodal systems for some time, including a version of its flagship Llama model capable of handling inputs beyond solely text, including video, images and audio.

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The multimodal models would also be featured in Meta’s Ray-Ban smart glasses, which it has been quietly improving for some time. The glasses feature a conversational AI assistant capable of generating information about what the wearer is observing.

However, Meta remains concerned about what it describes as an “unpredictable nature of the European regulatory environment.”

Meta is uncertain whether its use of European user data to train AI models complies with data protection laws, including the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), according to Axios.

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