If Google changes, it really means that artificial intelligence will soon change everything. Yesterday in Mountain View, in Silicon Valley, there was a flurry of announcements and basically only one headline: generative artificial intelligence will make Google services even better, from web searches to email, from maps to purchases. All immediately available in 180 countries, it has been said: 180 countries is a lot. There are 193 members of the United Nations, for example. If we exclude China and a few other authoritarian regimes, 180 countries are “all over the world“, one would say.
But no. Meanwhile, there is no Italy. But we won’t stand here and weep over Italy as the cinderella of innovation. Because if you look closely, the whole European Union isn’t there. Strange to do a super global event and not say a single word about this choice. This time the wind of the future blowing from Silicon Valley stops in front of the Pillars of Hercules. Why? In the absence of official explanations, common sense remains. So: why does Google, and we are talking about one of the most important companies in the world not a startup, decide to launch its generative artificial intelligence services anywhere but not in Europe? First hypothesis. It could have influenced what happened in Italy with ChatGPT, the Open AI system and therefore a rival to Google, blocked for exactly one month by the Privacy Guarantor, and returned online only after correcting the rules for managing user data. But that’s not all: these days the European Parliament is finally licensing the Artificial Intelligence Act. It is a fundamental set of rules that has been under discussion for a couple of years, which seemed ready by now, when the generative artificial intelligence and the legislators have realized that perhaps it was the case to deal with it. Just today the new text is being voted on in the commission, on 12 June it will arrive in the plenary session, and from there the negotiations to implement it will begin.
We’ll see what the new rules will say but in short, Google must have thought that in the meantime it’s better to stay away from Europe. Is it good or bad? I would say both things: it’s a bad thing if the frontier of innovation stops at our borders, it’s a good thing that there is someone who, while progress advances, is concerned with ensuring that it does not harm humanity but brings well-being. The European Union is confirmed as the guardian of people’s rights, it would be nice if it also started to become an engine of innovation and not just an arbitrator.