“The message I want to bring to London is this: on artificial intelligence [IA]Europe must innovate before regulating”, ensures World Bruno Le Maire. On Thursday, November 2, the Minister of the Economy will represent France at the Summit on the risks of AI organized by the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak, in the presence of representatives of companies in the sector and States, such as the vice -American President, Kamala Harris, or the President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. “It is illusory to want to regulate on our side if we do not participate in the emergence of this technology, argues the Minister of the Economy. Regulation is essential, but it will be more effective if we have European players who master AI. »
For Mr. Le Maire, Europe must not repeat the mistakes of the “last technological revolution of the 1990s”, she has “failed”, not having today “of no giant” of the consumer Internet. “A new revolution is before us with generative AI [capable de produire des textes ou des images, comme ChatGPT, Bard ou Midjourney]. Either we work harder to catch up, or, in thirty years, all the major players will be American or Chinese, with the loss of economic and cultural capital that this implies. insists the minister.
This “call to wake up” contrasts with the more alarmist tone of the British summit, focused on risks “existentials” of AI, such as the possibility of software escaping human control or facilitating the launch of computer attacks or the creation of biological weapons. “If we listen to certain apocalyptic presentations, we have the impression that hostile robots are going to arrive in our streets,” quips the minister, deeming subjects such as access to the computing resources necessary to train generative AI models more priority, in a context of domination of the sector by the chip manufacturer Nvidia.
“An important point of divergence”
This speech is reminiscent of that given by Emmanuel Macron in June: the President of the Republic was concerned about the effects on innovation of draft European regulations, calling for the creation of “champions” local. This offensive relayed the demands of French players, such as the manufacturers of language processing models LightOn or Mistral AI. They had co-signed a tribune in The echoes with other companies from all sectors or Cédric O, former digital minister who became an advisor to Mistral AI.
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