The rapid evolution of AI and machine learning will require the application of resources to develop, test, and maintain our offerings to help ensure that AI and machine learning are implemented responsibly in order to minimize unintended or harmful impacts. Uncertainty around new and emerging AI applications may require additional investment in the development of proprietary datasets, machine learning models, and systems to test for accuracy, bias, and other variables, which are often complex, may be costly, and could impact our profit margin as we expand the use of AI technologies in our offerings. Developing, testing, and deploying AI technologies may also increase our costs due to the associated computing costs. There are significant risks involved in developing, maintaining, and deploying these technologies and there can be no assurance that the usage of such technologies will always enhance our products or services or be beneficial to our business, including our efficiency or profitability. In particular, AI or automated decision making technologies may be incorrectly designed or implemented; may be trained or reliant on incomplete, inadequate, inaccurate, biased, or otherwise poor quality data or on data to which the developer does not have sufficient rights; and/or may be adversely impacted by unforeseen defects, technical challenges, cyber security threats, or material performance issues.
Our ability to continue to develop or use such technologies may be dependent on access to technology offered by vendors and specific third-party software and infrastructure, such as processing hardware or third-party AI models, and we cannot control the quality of vendor offerings or the availability or pricing of such third-party software and infrastructure, especially in a highly competitive environment. We face competition from other companies in our industry who use similar machine learning technologies to us. Failure to offer or deploy new AI technologies as effectively as our competitors could adversely affect our business.
In addition, market acceptance and consumer perceptions of AI and machine learning technologies are uncertain. AI technologies, including generative AI, may create content or information that appears correct but is factually inaccurate or flawed. Our Hosts, guests or others may rely on or use this flawed content or information to their detriment, which may expose us to brand or reputational harm, competitive harm, consumer complaints, legal liability, and other adverse consequences, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition. The use of AI technologies presents emerging ethical and social issues, and if we enable or offer solutions that draw scrutiny or controversy due to their perceived or actual impact on our customers or on society as a whole, we may experience brand or reputational harm, competitive harm, consumer complaints, legal liability, and other adverse consequences, any of which could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.
Our business also increasingly relies on machine learning, AI, and automated decision making to improve our services and tailor our interactions with our Hosts and guests. However, in recent years the use of personal data to train, or otherwise in connection with machine learning, AI and automated decision making, has come under increased regulatory scrutiny, and governments and regulators in the United States, European Union, and other places have announced the need for greater regulation regarding the use of machine learning and AI generally. New laws, guidance, and decisions in this area may limit our ability to use our machine learning and AI, or require us to make changes to our platform or operations that may decrease our operational efficiency, result in an increase to operating costs and/or hinder our ability to improve our services. For example, certain global privacy laws regulate the use of automated decision making and may require that the existence of automated decision making be disclosed to the data subject with a meaningful explanation of the logic used in such decision making in certain circumstances, and that safeguards must be implemented to safeguard individual rights, including the right to obtain human intervention and to contest any decision. Other global privacy laws allow individuals the right to opt out of certain automated processing of personal data and create other requirements that impact automated decision-making. At the federal level, the president of the United States recently issued an Executive Order on the Safe, Secure, and Trustworthy Development and Use of Artificial Intelligence, which charges multiple agencies, including The National Institute of Standards and Technology, with producing guidelines in connection with the development and use of AI. In the European Union, there is now political agreement on the EU Artificial Intelligence Act (“EU AI Act”), which establishes a comprehensive, risk-based governance framework for AI in the EU market. The EU AI Act is expected to enter into force in 2024, and the majority of the substantive requirements will apply two years later. The EU AI Act will apply to companies that develop, use and/or provide AI in the European Union and includes requirements around transparency, conformity assessments and monitoring, risk assessments, human oversight, security, accuracy, general purpose AI and foundation models, and proposes fines for breach of up to 7% of worldwide annual turnover (revenue). Additionally, in September 2022, the European Commission proposed two Directives seeking to establish a harmonized civil liability regime for AI in the European Union, in order to facilitate civil claims in respect of harm caused by AI and to include AI-enabled products within the scope of the European Union’s existing strict liability regime. Once fully applicable, the EU AI Act will have a material impact on the way AI is regulated in the European Union, and together with developing guidance and/or decisions in this area, may affect our use of AI and our ability to provide, improve, or commercialize our services, and could require additional compliance measures and changes to our operations and processes. Moreover, the intellectual property ownership and license rights, including copyright, surrounding AI technologies has not been fully addressed by courts or laws or regulations, and the use or adoption of AI technologies into our offerings may result in exposure to claims of copyright infringement or other intellectual property misappropriation. As the legal and regulatory framework for AI and automated decision making evolves, we may not always be able to anticipate how to respond to these laws or regulations, and compliance may adversely impact our operations and involve significant expenditure and resources. Any failure by us to comply may result in significant liability, potential increases in civil claims against us, negative publicity, an erosion of trust, and/or increased regulation and could materially adversely affect our business, results of operations, and financial condition.