Issue #2 - July 17, 2025

The AI Act and the Code of Practice are getting new momentum with the support of OpenAI

While two weeks ago the pressure from the EU industry was very high on the EC to press pause on the AI Act, the Commission has held on and decided to move on with the enforcement of the AI Act next month by publishing the Code of Practice for GPAI (General Purpose AI models). Despite a strong push back from CCIA, representing many US Tech companies, OpenAI has announced they were supporting The Code of Practice, aimed at defining specific measures such as copyright provisions for the most advanced models which involve the suite of models developed by OpenAI. According to the leading AI player who has committed to sign the Code, "now it's time to flip the script and use this moment to empower Europe's innovators to innovate and builders to build". According to CCIA, "without meaningful improvements, signatories remain at a disadvantage compared to non-signatories, thereby undermining the Commission's competitiveness and simplification agenda".

Age verification is moving forward in the EU with an experiment in some member states

The EU launched a pilot on July 14, with Denmark, France, Greece, Italy and Spain testing a white-label age verification solution. The blueprint allows integration into national digital wallets, created through the eID directive. According to the EC, "the age verification will also be enhanced with the latest technical solutions (zero-knowledge proof) to ensure the highest level of privacy protection." At a later stage, a localised App should be made available to run this age verification tool on devices. This announcement represents an additional step to verify ages and provide age appropriate experiences for youth. This could also pave the way for full bans. France has repeatedly called for the ban of social media under the age of 15.

Meta invests in the UK and warns about "Brussels's failures"

Last week, Joel Kaplan, the President of Meta's Global affairs met with Rachel Reeves, the UK Chancellor of the Exchequer and announced the launch of a $16 million Audio lab in Cambridge. A few days after the meeting, Joel Kaplan welcomed in an op-ed for The Times, the UK attitude towards innovation: "the [UK] government's approach gives us confidence to keep investing here". Over the past few months, Starmer's government has sent signals to improve economic growth, which includes reducing red tape such as making competition probes faster and more predictable, and followed the US position during the AI Paris Summit of not signing a global communique over concerns the text was overindexing on biases and excessive AI regulation. Acknowledging this policy shift, Kaplan warns "the UK can lead in AI, if it avoids Brussels' failures". "The EU is hampering innovation through activist regulation", citing the flagship EU regulations GDPR, DSA, DMA, and the AI Act, and insisting that "this is not just bad for the EU, it is also a barrier to US trade. That's a view shared by the US government". Trump's administration has mentioned the EU Tech rules as instances of unfair commercial practices towards the US, and while the tariff discussion has abruptly reopened with the US threatening the EU with a 30% levy, the pressure on the EU tech regulatory regime is likely to weigh in very heavily again.

What I've read/listened to

Inside the 'neurohacking' camp that promises worldly bliss in five days - FT - July 5

A journalist ends up in the countryside near Seattle to try a program aimed at optimizing mental performance. For $16,000, the promise is to get to a level of spiritual enlightenment that comes from 40 years of meditative practice in just five days.

What You've Suspected Is True: Billionaires Are Not Like Us - Rolling Stones - June 15

Does being rich make people less empathic, and more narcissistic? It turns out that many scientific papers confirm the same conclusion, yes that's absolutely the case.

Your private data, your personal doctor—brought to you by AI - Podcast by The Economist - June 4th

Fascinating story about the breakthroughs of GenAI assistant for medicine, how people are massively turning to these machines to get medical advice, with still a lot of unknown about medical privacy and confidentiality.