(Bloomberg) -- Finance and technology firms have cautioned UK regulators against heavy-handed rules governing artificial intelligence, saying they shouldn't try to define the nascent technology at present.
The Prudential Regulation Authority and Financial Conduct Authority said discussions with 54 companies and industry bodies produced no clear consensus on the potential benefits or risks of AI, according to a paper published Thursday, which did not name the firms consulted.
Finance giants such as ratings company Moody's Inc. and Wall Street bank JPMorgan Chase & Co. are already experimenting with AI to cut costs, speed up processes and spot trends, creating thousands of jobs as they explore new use cases.
While some companies told regulators they'd like international watchdogs to work together on fragmented areas such as data protection, others said aspects like governance can be managed under existing rules such as the Senior Managers' Regime.
Opinions were also split on the dangers of bias within AI, with some saying it could be used to spot unfair treatment of certain consumers. The findings are the latest to emerge from several years of work on AI by UK regulators as they try to understand the risks to the financial system.
“I think it's important not to get overly focused specifically on AI, AI has been evolving for quite some time,” Jessica Rusu, chief data, information and intelligence officer at the Financial Conduct Authority told parliament's science, innovation and technology committee on Wednesday.
“I think what we should be concerned about is our overarching digital infrastructure, our reliance on the cloud and those large providers, as well as cybersecurity and other risks as they emerge,” she said.
Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said separately on Thursday that world leaders should hold back from regulating artificial intelligence before they've fully understood the rapidly developing technology — even as he outlined some of the risks it poses — in a speech setting the scene for next week's AI summit at Bletchley Park.
Still, the impact of AI on labor markets or the automation of financial markets “could cause social and geopolitical instability,” according to documents published for the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology that examined frontier risks.
The European Union, meanwhile, is considering a three-tiered approach to regulating generative AI models and systems, which would make it the first Western government to impose mandatory rules, Bloomberg News has reported. In the US, creators of AI technology have adopted voluntary safety principles.
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