EU Asks Microsoft to Provide Information About Bing’s Generative AI Features

European Union officers have issued Microsoft Corp. A legally binding request for statistics about generative artificial intelligence functions in Bing. The European Commission, the EU’s executive department, introduced the circulate these days. Microsoft has until May 27 to provide the requested information, and failing to accomplish that may want to cause probably sizable fines.

The request is a part of the European Commission’s efforts to ensure tech giants observe the bloc’s Digital Services Act, or DSA. The regulation calls for huge on-line platform operators consisting of Microsoft to reveal for several kinds of dangers of their offerings and mitigate them. That consists of dangers related to generative AI capabilities.

In March, the EU requested Microsoft, Google LLC, Meta Platforms Inc., and several other tech firms to provide records approximately their respective generative AI functions. The intention of the requests changed into to help officers determine whether the organizations are complying with the DSA’s provisions approximately mitigating dangers to users. The 2nd request for statistics that the EU despatched to Microsoft these days changed into issued because the tech giant failed to proportion certain “internal files and data” in its initial response.

The EU can impose fines same to up to at least one% of companies’ annual worldwide revenue if they publish wrong, incomplete, or deceptive statistics in reaction to a request for data. Should Microsoft now not expose the facts that officials asked for by means of the May 27 cut-off date, it is able to potentially face extra penalties. Failing to offer asked records can result in fines equal to up to 1% of a company’s annual worldwide revenue in addition to smaller periodical consequences.

The new request for facts specializes in generative AI features that Microsoft presents as part of Bing. The first is the hunt large’s integrated Copilot chatbot, that's powered by OpenAI’s GPT-4 massive language version. The different characteristic the EU is scrutinizing, Image Creator through Designer, lets in users to generate snap shots with herbal language activates.

The EU believes the two functions may have breached the DSA “concerning precise dangers stemming from Bing’s generative AI functions.” The dangers that officials have identified consist of the functions’ capacity to disseminate deepfakes and carry out “automated manipulation of offerings that could misinform citizens.” The EU is likewise worried approximately hallucinations, AI responses that comprise fake or deceptive data.

Microsoft informed TechCrunch in a announcement that “we have been absolutely cooperating with the European Commission as a part of the voluntary request for statistics and remain committed to responding to their questions and sharing greater about our method to virtual safety and compliance with the DSA.”