Major world political leaders yesterday were meeting for an artificial intelligence (AI) summit in Paris, where challenging diplomatic talks were expected while technology titans fight for dominance in the fast-moving industry.
Heads of state, top government officials, chief executives and scientists from about 100 nations were participating in the two-day international summit.
High-profile attendees included US Vice President J.D. Vance, on his first overseas trip since taking office, and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing (張國清).
Photo: AFP
“We’re living a technology and scientific revolution we’ve rarely seen,” French President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday on national television France 2.
France and Europe must seize the “opportunity” because AI “will enable us to live better, learn better, work better, care better, and it’s up to us to put this artificial intelligence at the service of human beings,” he said.
The summit would give some European leaders a chance to meet Vance for the first time. The 40-year-old vice president was just 18 months into his time as Ohio’s junior senator when US President Donald Trump picked him as his running mate.
Vance today is to have a working lunch with Macron, with discussions on Ukraine and the Middle East on the menu.
Vance, like Trump, has questioned US spending on Ukraine and the approach to isolating Russian President Vladimir Putin. Trump promised to end the fighting within six months of taking office.
Vance later this week is to attend the Munich Security Conference, where he might meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy. The vice president was joined by his wife, Usha, and their three children — Ewan, Vivek and Mirabel — for the trip to Europe.
European leaders have been watching carefully Trump’s statements on threats to impose tariffs on the EU, take control of Greenland and his suggestion that Palestinians clear out Gaza once the fighting in the Israel-Hamas conflict ends — an idea that has been flatly rejected by Arab allies.
The summit, which gathers major players such as Google, Microsoft and OpenAI, aims at fostering AI advances in sectors such as healthcare, education, environment and culture.
A global public-private partnership named “Current AI” is to be launched to support large-scale initiatives that serve the general interest.
The Paris summit “is the first time we’ll have had such a broad international discussion in one place on the future of AI,” said Linda Griffin, vice president of public policy at Mozilla. “I see it as a norm-setting moment.”
Nick Reiners, senior geotechnology analyst at Eurasia Group, said that it was an opportunity to shape AI governance in a new direction by “moving away from this concentration of power amongst a handful of private actors and building this public interest AI instead.”
However, it remains unclear if the US would support such initiatives.
French organizers also hope the summit would lead to major investment announcements in Europe.
France is to announce 109 billion euros (US$112 billion) of AI private investments over the coming years, Macron said, presenting it as “the equivalent” of Trump’s Stargate AI data centers project.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is cohosting the summit with Macron, in an effort to involve more global actors in AI development and prevent the sector from becoming a US-China battle.
Indian Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri stressed the need for equitable access to AI to avoid “perpetuating a digital divide that is already existing across the world.”
Macron is tomorrow to travel with Modi to the southern city port of Marseille to inaugurate a new Indian consulate and visit the ITER nuclear research site.
France has become a key defense partner for India, with talks underway on purchasing 26 Rafale fighter jets and three Scorpene submarines.
POLITICAL PRISONERS VS DEPORTEES: Venezuela’s prosecutor’s office slammed the call by El Salvador’s leader, accusing him of crimes against humanity Salvadoran President Nayib Bukele on Sunday proposed carrying out a prisoner swap with Venezuela, suggesting he would exchange Venezuelan deportees from the US his government has kept imprisoned for what he called “political prisoners” in Venezuela. In a post on X, directed at Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, Bukele listed off a number of family members of high-level opposition figures in Venezuela, journalists and activists detained during the South American government’s electoral crackdown last year. “The only reason they are imprisoned is for having opposed you and your electoral fraud,” he wrote to Maduro. “However, I want to propose a humanitarian agreement that
Young women standing idly around a park in Tokyo’s west suggest that a giant statue of Godzilla is not the only attraction for a record number of foreign tourists. Their faces lit by the cold glow of their phones, the women lining Okubo Park are evidence that sex tourism has developed as a dark flipside to the bustling Kabukicho nightlife district. Increasing numbers of foreign men are flocking to the area after seeing videos on social media. One of the women said that the area near Kabukicho, where Godzilla rumbles and belches smoke atop a cinema, has become a “real
‘POINT OF NO RETURN’: The Caribbean nation needs increased international funding and support for a multinational force to help police tackle expanding gang violence The top UN official in Haiti on Monday sounded an alarm to the UN Security Council that escalating gang violence is liable to lead the Caribbean nation to “a point of no return.” Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti Maria Isabel Salvador said that “Haiti could face total chaos” without increased funding and support for the operation of the Kenya-led multinational force helping Haiti’s police to tackle the gangs’ expanding violence into areas beyond the capital, Port-Au-Prince. Most recently, gangs seized the city of Mirebalais in central Haiti, and during the attack more than 500 prisoners were freed, she said.
DEMONSTRATIONS: A protester said although she would normally sit back and wait for the next election, she cannot do it this time, adding that ‘we’ve lost too much already’ Thousands of protesters rallied on Saturday in New York, Washington and other cities across the US for a second major round of demonstrations against US President Donald Trump and his hard-line policies. In New York, people gathered outside the city’s main library carrying signs targeting the US president with slogans such as: “No Kings in America” and “Resist Tyranny.” Many took aim at Trump’s deportations of undocumented migrants, chanting: “No ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement], no fear, immigrants are welcome here.” In Washington, protesters voiced concern that Trump was threatening long-respected constitutional norms, including the right to due process. The
RSS