By Courtney Rozen and JC Whittington
CHAPEL HILL, North Carolina, Sept 1 (Reuters) - The U.S. pressed G20 members on Tuesday to take a hands-off approach to AI regulation and avoid creating new rules for the technology at a gathering of industry titans and commerce ministers in North Carolina.
The U.S. goals largely align with the thinking of the world's biggest AI companies, nearly all of which are American. They want less regulation around the world for their rapidly growing businesses, or to shape the rules as they are written. Federal government requirements could hurt the industry's profits if they slow the release of new models or prompt the companies to change how their products perform to address security concerns.
U.S. tech adviser Michael Kratsios, who is co-hosting the two-day meeting, advocated for countries to avoid writing entirely new regulations for AI, and instead focus on writing rules for "novel" situations that involve the technology.
He also called on the countries to invest in "foundational research to accelerate discovery" and strengthen commercial opportunities for new technology.
"Policymakers do not need to approach each innovation in isolation and should not treat every emerging technology as a first-of-its-kind policy problem," he said.
Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk addressed the gathering by video on Tuesday.
Hassabis called on the G20 officials to set up safety tests for AI systems.
Zuckerberg said that countries should not restrict open-weight AI models. Open-weight AI models are systems with publicly accessible core elements. Zuckerberg in recent weeks has tried to position his company as a leader in open-weight models, and restrictions could dampen his ambitions.
Musk criticized the European Union's tech regulations, saying that the EU's policy "inhibits progress" for companies. He also urged leaders outside China to develop new energy sources to power data centers. Debates over data centers have become a key political issue in the U.S. ahead of the 2026 midterm elections, with development influencing voter attitudes toward candidates.
A United Nations panel recently warned that AI's developments are outpacing scientific understanding and government policy. Recent events, including a hack triggered by a rogue OpenAI agent that compromised the infrastructure of AI company Hugging Face, added to concerns about how closely leading AI companies are monitoring tests of their products. AI agents are programs that run with minimal human supervision.