ChatGPT row: OpenAI may leave the EU if regulations bite, says CEO Sam Altman

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said on Wednesday the ChatGPT maker might consider leaving Europe if it could not comply with the upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) regulations by the European Union.

The EU is working on what could be the first set of rules globally to govern AI. As part of the draft, companies deploying generative AI tools, such as ChatGPT, will have to disclose any copyrighted material used to develop their systems.

Before considering pulling out, OpenAI will try to comply with the regulation in Europe when it is set, Altman said in an event in London.

"The current draft of the EU AI Act would be over-regulating, but we have heard it's going to get pulled back," he told Reuters. "They are still talking about it."

The EU parliamentarians reached common ground on the draft of the act earlier this month. It will now be debated between the representatives of the Parliament, the Council and the Commission to thrash out the final details of the bill.

"There's so much they could do like changing the definition of general purpose AI systems," Altman said. "There's a lot of things that could be done."

A General Purpose AI System is a category proposed by lawmakers to account for AI tools with more than one application, such as generative AI models like Microsoft-backed ChatGPT.