Opinion | Rapid rise of ChatGPT and AI demands global leaders act swiftly on regulation treaty

For the past few months, ChatGPT has brought to the fore the remarkable capabilities and equally worrisome side effects of artificial intelligence in our daily lives. If anything, this is just the beginning, and more surprises and concerns are on the way.

The way we think, behave and interact stands to change dramatically, as does how a government regulates people and corporations to carry out national business. The same with state-to-state interaction and competition in the global community. It is now almost impossible to fathom our present and envisage our future without taking account of AI.

Even so, legal norms on this critical development remain largely absent. There has been legislation in various countries on some aspects of digital society – such as information gathering, privacy protection or online fraud prevention – but none on AI in general to facilitate necessary technological development and societal permeation while also guarding against harmful consequences and attendant side effects.

The European Commission presented a draft regulation on AI in April 2021. It passed the European Parliament last month and will hopefully be adopted for implementation by the end of the year. If successful, the European Union’s latest effort will mark the first attempt to introduce horizontal regulation of AI. Given where AI stands now, domestic legislative endeavours are long overdue.

What has happened of late are discussions on specific aspects of the advent of AI, such as how to regulate automated weapons, and experimental clauses inserted in conventional treaties to address particular facets of digital economy, such as cross-border data flow.