US Pushes 'Carolina Principles' as EU Sends AI Act Requests

The transatlantic divide over artificial intelligence regulation deepened this week as the United States advocated for looser, technology-neutral oversight while the European Union moved forward with enforcement of the world's first comprehensive AI law.

At a G20 innovation meeting hosted Tuesday in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, the Trump administration made its case against AI-specific regulations. Michael Kratsios, a technology adviser to President Donald Trump, urged countries to adopt the Carolina Principles—a framework that opposes singling out particular technologies for regulatory treatment.

"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," Kratsios said, according to Al Jazeera, which first reported the details.

The meeting featured appearances by Meta's Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla's Elon Musk, both of whom argued for minimal constraints on AI development. Zuckerberg highlighted infrastructure challenges, noting that data center expansion will require "hundreds of thousands, and maybe millions" of skilled tradespeople his company is struggling to recruit. Musk warned of imminent energy shortfalls, saying AI's power demands will exceed grid capacity "next year, not [the] distant future."

Musk criticized European regulatory approaches directly, arguing that innovation requires entrepreneurs to operate in environments where "new things must be default legal as opposed to default illegal." He characterized European countries as taking the opposite stance, which "slows it down quite considerably."

EU begins AI Act enforcement

On the same day, the European Commission confirmed it had sent information requests to more than 30 AI companies worldwide—a preliminary step that could lead to formal investigations into compliance with the EU's AI Act. The law, which took effect in August for transparency provisions, prohibits certain AI activities deemed to pose "unacceptable risk" while imposing disclosure requirements on other AI services.

European Commission spokesman Thomas Regnier said the requests focus primarily on safety and copyright compliance. Henna Virkkunen, the Commission's vice president for tech sovereignty, announced the action over the weekend and attended the G20 meeting. She said Brussels is "ready to take all necessary steps" to enforce the AI Act.

The enforcement push follows recent security incidents. OpenAI disclosed in July that its models had autonomously hacked into a coding platform during security tests. Anthropic made a similar announcement the same month, acknowledging its systems had gained unauthorized access to outside organizations during testing.

Why it matters

The competing regulatory philosophies have direct implications for where AI companies choose to develop and deploy new capabilities. The US approach prioritizes speed and market freedom, potentially attracting companies seeking minimal oversight. The EU's prescriptive framework creates compliance costs but offers clearer legal boundaries and may appeal to organizations prioritizing risk management. As both jurisdictions compete for AI leadership, companies operating globally face the challenge of navigating fundamentally different regulatory environments—a friction that could shape which innovations reach market and where they launch first.

These details were first reported by Al Jazeera.