Lmst

@khobochka
2. Byte by byte- How Big Tech undermined the AI Act
https://www.corporateeurope.org/en/2023/11/byte-byte

You might find these two more recent reports also interesting:
1. Bias baked in- How Big Tech sets its own AI standards https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/01/bias-baked

Corporate Europe Observatory boosted:

Excerpts from the Lobbying Ghost in the Machine report, outlining how BigTech already bullshitted and bought ($67 million a year, thank you @corporateeurope for this number) its way out of regulations by
(1) excluding a bullshit product they invented on the spot from the #AI Act;
(2) externalising risks by shifting responsibility to businesses using that product.
Apropos, there's a petition to make the trilogue corporate lobbyists-infested negotiations more open: https://corporateeurope.org/en/2023/02/sign-petition-trilogue-transparency

"In April 2021 EU Commissioners presented a proposal for a European legal framework on AI. It was celebrated as the first global attempt to establish a regulatory scheme for AI – a technology that would “have an enormous impact on the way people live and work in the coming decades”.
However, AI is increasingly central to the business models of large tech companies such as Google, Microsoft, and Meta (formerly Facebook). Google, in private meetings with the Commission, described itself as an “AI first company”. And so, unsurprisingly, the European Union’s push to regulate has faced intense corporate lobbying attempts at every stage of the policy-making process.
The Commission proposed a risk-based approach to regulating AI (see Figure 1). This means that, as the risk increases, AI systems have to conform to stricter rules. For example, applications of AI involving say, chat bots, might be classed as “limited risk”. At the highest “unacceptable” risk level applications would be banned completely, for instance social scoring, eg scoring and rewarding the trustworthiness of people based on their online and offline behaviour or other personal data."

Figure 1:
Unacceptable: Prohibited - Social scoring, facial recognition, dark-pattern AI, manipulation.
High: Conformity Assessment - Education, employment, justice, immigration, law;
Limited: Transparency - Chat bots, deep fakes, emotion recognition, systems.
Minimal: Code of conduct - Spam filters, Video games.

Documents obtained by Corporate Europe
Observatory show how tech companies,
particularly from the US, sought to reduce
requirements for high risk AI systems and limit
the scope of the regulation. In particular Big Tech
lobbyists sought to exclude the newly introduced
concept of ‘general purpose’ AI systems from
regulation (where AI systems – usually produced
by Silicon Valley giants – are used or incorporated
into a variety of uses by other companies; these
same tech giants want the regulations not to
apply to the originator of the tech, but only to the
companies deploying them in various ways).
The AI Act is now nearing its final stages, which are
the secretive trilogue negotiations, which tend to
benefit well-connected and well-funded lobbyists.
As the Council, Parliament, and Commission, set
out to reach agreements on EU policy proposals,
the stakes for this world-first attempt to regulate
AI remain high.
While MEPs are pushing for stronger fundamental
rights protections in the AI Act, the Council
introduced several concerning carve-outs for law
enforcement and security. It is highly likely that the
discussion on general purpose AI will be pushed
into the future

Corporate Europe Observatory boosted:

"Commission President von der Leyen has embarked on a radical deregulation campaign, with the clear intention to dismantle rules that business lobbies dislike, including social and environmental standards. The EU has seen deregulation waves before, but it’s very different this time: it’s not only far more comprehensive and ruthless, there’s unprecedented levels of support for it among governments and in the European Parliament."

by @corporateeurope: https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/04/why-progressives-must-organise-stop-eus-deregulation-wave

#Europe #EU #growth

"The power of business in Europe has never been so great. Major players are using geopolitical and economic unrest to push through political goals", interview (in Dutch) of Olivier Hoedeman by Yannick van der Heijden for De Groene Amsterdammer

https://www.groene.nl/artikel/alles-voor-de-multinationals

It’s famous for its anti-tax stance.
It has Apple and Microsoft on its board.
Its top funder is a key funder of the Trump camp.
It has boosted its EU lobbying and is being received with open arms by the Commission.

Want to know more? Don't expect much from the EU's register.

Read our profile of the opaque Tax Foundation 👉 https://www.corporateeurope.org/en/2025/04/opaque-us-anti-tax-foundation-advise-eu-commission

Corporate Europe Observatory boosted:

Big business spends millions lobbying the EU, but who are the top spenders, and what do they want?
https://youtu.be/AkJF9sYpQGY via @corporateeurope

Corporate Europe Observatory boosted:

📢🇪🇺 European Union, 14 March 2025 - Poland Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers has received a majority for the deregulation of plants obtained from new #GeneticEngineering #NGT 🧬
💰🤑😈 Economic and political interests have prevailed, as the proposal does not stand up to scientific scrutiny 🔬☣️
👉 https://www.testbiotech.org/en/news/economy-beats-science

@testbiotech

@GMWatch @infogm @generationsfutures @DefendingUNDROP @Duarte_carlos @corporateeurope @GRAIN @liguedroitshumains @Attac @socialter @bastamedia @Reporterre

📢🇪🇺 European Union, 14 March 2025 - Poland Presidency of the EU Council of Ministers has received a majority for the deregulation of plants obtained from new #GeneticEngineering #NGT 🧬
💰🤑😈 Economic and political interests have prevailed, as the proposal does not stand up to scientific scrutiny 🔬☣️
👉 https://www.testbiotech.org/en/news/economy-beats-science
@testbiotech

Corporate Europe Observatory boosted:

🌐 DEFENDING PEASANTS RIGHTS ⚖️
>EN https://DefendingPeasantsRights.org/en
>ES https://DefendingPeasantsRights.org/es
>FR https://DefendingPeasantsRights.org/fr
ⓕ https://facebook.com/DefendingPeasantsRights
𝕏 https://x.com/DefendingUNDROP
🦋 https://bsky.app/profile/defendingundrop.bsky.social
🦣 https://mastodon.social/@DefendingUNDROP
🇺🇳 Universal Declaration on the Rights of Peasants & Other People Working in Rural Areas (UNDROP) adopted by the United Nations General Assembly 17 Dec 2018
➡️ http://UNDROP.org

#UNDROP #PeasantsRights #DerechosCampesinos #DroitsPaysans @DefendingUNDROP @liguedroitshumains

@Saupreiss it was a very fast protest, we didn't really give them a lot of time to react

👉 €14 billion in cuts to public and non-profit services (which will hit civil society and social impact sectors)
👉 Reduced part-time employment benefits (disproportionately impacting women—40% of women in Belgium work part-time)
👉 Stricter unemployment rules (with disproportionate effects on young and lower-qualified workers)

That’s why today, we are joining thousands of others in demanding a system that works for everyone.

We will be back tomorrow, April 1st (for real!).

✊Today we are on strike.

Belgium is coming to a standstill to protest a system that is burdening workers while corporations continue to profit and attacks on civil society multiply. Wages aren’t keeping up, public services are underfunded, and the cost of living keeps climbing.

The new Belgian Arizona government is pushing austerity measures that threaten public services, workers’ rights, and social protections, including:

green background and the words: we are on strike

Speaking in the video, in order of appearance:
👉 Nina Holland, Corporate Europe Observatory
👉 Martin Dermine, PAN Europe
👉 Clara Bourgin, Friends of the Earth Europe
👉 Noa Simon Delso, Bee Life
👉 Jörg Rohwedder, Foodwatch International
👉 Suzanne Astic, Child Rights International Network

#pesticideactionweek

🐝 Yesterday we went to CropLife Europe's offices to present them with the bill for poisoning our world. CropLife Europe are lobbyists for big polluters such as Bayer, BASF, Syngenta and Corteva

We are public debt collectors and we say: pesticides kill, polluters pay the bill!

#pesticideactionweek

@sindarina it's solved now, thanks! 🤜 🤛

More on the situation in the EU here:
https://www.corporateeurope.org/en/2025/03/false-alarm-fake-news-and-right-fuel-attack-ngos

Meanwhile, in Europe, a full Trumpian turn of political life is also going on, with fake news and right wing MEPs fuelling the European Commission's attacks on civil society funding. Here too, the fight is not over yet, with important votes ahead in coming months.

#Imwithgreenpeace
#Iwillnotbesilenced

@greenpeace has been ordered to pay $660m for taking part in Standing Rock against the Keystone XL pipeline.

Those standing up for democracy are punished, instead of the fossil fuel companies who should be forced to pay for their planetary disaster. But it's not over yet.

Blue background and letters in white saying: in solidarity with Greenpeace together against corporate capture of democracy

🎧 Check out our brand new #podcast episode with
@bramvranken about the recent lobbying scandal involving Huawei, and how Big Tech is writing the rules that will govern their own AI products

👉 https://corporateeurope.org/en/2025/03/huaweigate-ai-act-how-bake-bias

#Huaweigate

🆗 we need #FossilFreePolitics to deliver real solutions & bring carbon emissions down to #RealZero

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