On Wednesday, EU Member States approved a change to the GDPR that would put the profit-making interests of OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Meta and SpaceX over European’s fundamental right to data protection. According to the approved text, processing personal data “in the context of AI” should automatically be lawful. In particular, Big Tech would be able to use all personal data collected over the past decades with virtually no restrictions, as long as this happens “in the context” of AI. Schrems: “Under the agreed text, the profits of AI companies would typically trump European’s fundamental right to privacy. This is nothing but a digital expropriation of Europeans.” All this is happening despite the key figures of AI corporations actively warning about the enormous risks associated with their own products.
Partly AI-psychosis, but it’s also geopolitics (especially as the main beneficiary would be US big tech): US renews push for EU to soften Big Tech rules
The recent Starshield saga shows how dependent Europeans are on certain US capabilities that simply lack a European alternative (the European alternative to Starlink, IRIS2, won’t be online before 2030), so with the Ukraine war and the European security order looming in the background of everything, politicians are willing to twist themselves as much as it takes to placate the US.