The Paris Summit was an opportunity to bring together power, money and tech (what could possibly go wrong?). Organised by France and India, it was attended by many political leaders (including Ursula von der Leyen, US Vice President J.D. Vence, India PM Shri Narendra Modi, Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholtz and many others), some leaders of the tech industry (including the CEO of Google and representatives of other tech moguls), scientists, activists and journalists. The summit was to focus on issues related to the development of AI (of course) and the ethical sustainability of this process.
Reading the comments after the event, I got the impression that everyone was unhappy with the result. That sounds like quite an achievement! Why do I think that?
America and the UK did not sign the final statment. Apparently, the US under Trump and Musk sees any effort to regulate the AI space as a threat to their imperial ambitions. Too much regulation is their problem. The UK seems to want to be on the side of the US (officially, the issue is the lack of AI safety/security declarations). After all, it is not impossible that the British have a soft spot in their hearts for the idea of empire.
On the other hand, many NGOs and experts claim that it was a kind of missed opportunity and failure to put rules in place to protect people before it was too late. So they say that we need more rules.
I agree that it was more of a business-oriented event, although there is a lot of talk about social issues related to AI in the final statment and other published documents. My personal understanding is that France and President Macron have come to the conclusion that if France wants to stay on its political and economic level, it really needs to invest in AI. And for France, this event was designed to promote this idea and bring together French and global companies.
But is this a bad thing? Macron and France seem to have a realistic approach to the world we live in. AI is an inevitable future, so better to get on board now than to be left at the mercy of US and Chinese tech giants. During the summit, France announced an investment of more than 100 billion in AI development.
What interests me here is a kind of debate between the European approach to AI and the US approach.
Europe is old and lazy. #
It is quite clear that the current U.S. administration is willing to let big corporations get away with a lot. Massive deregulation, low privacy standards, even the sharing of government data. Everything is fine as long as US tech companies are at the top.
On the other hand, there was a lot of talk about Europe sleeping through the moment. And that the modern European mentality and the organization of states and work are not conducive to growth, start-ups and innovation. That is why the US and China will win this race, relegating Europe to the second division.
As is almost always the case in discussions of European problems, critics pointed to bloated bureaucracy (and it is hard not to agree that it is a problem in the EU). High taxes are another issue. And what is probably most controversial accusation it is certain way of blaming “culture of work-life balance”. I understand that the point is that Europeans don’t work enough and work low and unions are too strong. Of course, such accusations can provoke a furious outcry. Apparently, some business-minded people also complain about EU privacy and AI regulations - a burden for startups.
I am not saying that I agree with everything I am summarizing here, but I would like to add one more thing that came up and I think it is quite a biggie. Too much dependence on the US and US tech companies (for years).
Wake up call for Europe #
How do you respond to such criticism? We can start by looking at how political leaders have responded. Or perhaps how they have tried to respond. Ursula von der Leyen:
Macron, for his part, emphasized that Europe has many well-educated talents and French cheap electricity allows to “plug-in” AI. He also said that this summit is a “wake-up call for European strategy”.
It is obvious that both of them will always claim that Europe is strong and France even stronger. What I think is important to take away from the summit and their speeches is the recognition that Europe is somehow behind (well, not a big discovery, but the point is to admit it). And that the politicians declare that the European way to AI should be somehow different from the US and China. They say that Europe should be able to preserve European values and European standards (privacy, low labor costs, etc.).
Let us think how they want to do it and is it really possible. What is it: European way to AI?
M