Musk and Zuckerberg Appear at G20 Meeting, Urge AI Deregulation

[Financial News] Leading business leaders in the U.S. artificial intelligence (AI) industry emphasized the importance of AI to G20 ministers and urged deregulation.

According to foreign media outlets including France's AFP, SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk, Meta Platforms CEO Mark Zuckerberg, and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis participated virtually in the G20 Technology Ministers' meeting held in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, on the 1st (local time).
At the meeting, Musk argued that "innovation must be free from regulation, and new technologies should be allowed as legal in principle, rather than illegal in principle." He pointed out that "in the European Union (EU), new technologies are typically treated as illegal in principle," adding that "while this does not block innovation, it slows down the pace of development." He argued that deregulation is necessary, stating that AI could increase the size of the global economy by 20–30% annually.
Furthermore, Musk claimed that data centers for running and developing AI require massive amounts of electricity, asserting that "a severe power shortage will occur as early as next year." He warned that AI leadership could shift to China due to the West's power shortages. Currently, in the U.S. and Europe, there is strong public opposition to the massive power consumption of data centers, while simultaneously criticizing AI companies for damaging the environment by building thermal power plants to meet their power needs.
At the meeting, Zuckerberg emphasized that data centers create jobs. He stated, "The demand for data centers is enormous," and revealed that millions of skilled jobs are needed in the process of building and expanding them. At the same time, he argued that open AI models, which Meta Platforms is interested in, should be exempt from regulation.
Meanwhile, Hassabis stated, "AI can shorten the time required for new drug development from years to weeks," adding, "I look forward to being able to respond to hundreds of diseases (in the future)." He argued that if human-level AI is developed, it will bring about an impact ten times greater than that of the Industrial Revolution, asserting, "This is an opportunity we must seize."



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