What should France do about artificial intelligence (AI)? Questioned about this technology, the AI Commission issued a report to Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, March 13. “optimistic and positive, even if we know there are risks”, assumes Anne Bouverot. The President of the Board of Directors of the Ecole Normale Supérieure co-chaired, with economist Philippe Aghion, the work of around fifteen experts commissioned in September 2023 by Matignon.
Back in the spotlight since the launch of ChatGPT at the end of 2022, AI is presented as a “unavoidable technological revolution”, comparable to electricity or automobiles. If France missed it, “We could not only miss out on the AI economy, which would lead to increasing capture by others of our economic value, but also see the weakening of other sectors of activity”, warn the authors, pointing out a risk of “economic downgrading”. “If we don’t do anything, we risk watching the trains go by”, summarizes Mme Bouverot, in reference to past waves of digital innovation, dominated by American companies.
Faced with these crucial issues, the commission nevertheless assures that France can be ” at the forefront “ of AI. “It’s an opportunity for France, for the economy and for the people who work, provided we prepare for it”, assures the co-president. In a “ambitious action plan”it proposes to invest 5 billion euros per year for five years, in particular to finance the sector and the diffusion of technology in companies, but also to train employees, etc.
If the report endorses the values of “sovereignty”, of ” social dialogue ” and of ” responsibility “it also aims to lift certain “brakes”. And several recommendations could be controversial: the facilitation of the establishment of data centers in France, the relaxation of certain authorization procedures for using personal data, particularly in health or by the police, the creation of a “AI fund” endowed with 10 billion euros and the idea of reforming taxation to finance innovation, the call to disseminate AI in public services, including education…
Some in the cultural industries were also worried that the companies’ vision of AI was too present within the commission, made up of researchers, the lawyer Alexandra Bensamoun, the trade unionist Franca Salis-Madinier, but also representatives of Google (Joëlle Barral), Meta (Yann Le Cun) and Mistral AI (Arthur Mensch and Cédric O, former Secretary of State for Digital).
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