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Meta is putting plans for its AI assistant<\/a> on hold in Europe after receiving objections from Ireland\u2019s privacy regulator, the company announced on Friday<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n In a blog post, Meta said the Irish Data Protection Commission (DPC) asked the company to delay training its large language models on content that had been publicly posted to Facebook and Instagram profiles.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meta said it is \u201cdisappointed\u201d by the request, \u201cparticularly since we incorporated regulatory feedback and the European [Data Protection Authorities] have been informed since March.\u201d <\/strong>Per the Irish Independent<\/em><\/a>, Meta had recently begun notifying European users that it would collect their data and offered an opt-out option in an attempt to comply with European privacy laws.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Meta said it will \u201ccontinue to work collaboratively with the DPC.\u201d But its blog post says that Google and OpenAI have \u201calready used data from Europeans to train AI\u201d and claims that if regulators don\u2019t let it use users\u2019 information to train its models, Meta can only deliver an inferior product. \u201cPut simply, without including local information we\u2019d only be able to offer people a second-rate experience. This means we aren\u2019t able to launch Meta AI in Europe at the moment.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n European regulators, on the other hand, have welcomed the pause.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u201cWe are pleased that Meta has reflected on the concerns we shared from users of their service in the UK, and responded to our request to pause and review plans to\u202fuse Facebook and Instagram user data to train generative AI,\u201d Stephen Almond, the executive director of regulatory risk at the UK Information Commissioner\u2019s Office, said in a statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n The DPC\u2019s request followed a campaign by the advocacy group NOYB \u2014 None of Your Business \u2014 which filed 11 complaints against Meta in several European countries, Reuters<\/em> reports<\/a>.\u00a0NOYB founder Max Schrems told the Irish Independent <\/em>that the complaint hinged on Meta\u2019s legal basis for collecting personal data. \u201cMeta is basically saying that it can use any data from any source for any purpose and make it available to anyone in the world, as long as it\u2019s done via AI technology,\u201d Schrems said. \u201cThis is clearly the opposite of GDPR compliance.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n