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Emmanuel Macron, the French president, speaks at the Viva Tech fair in Paris, France, on Wednesday, June 14, 2023. Macron told CNBC that he believes global regulation is necessary for AI.
Nathan Lane | bloomberg | Getty Images
Senior French politicians told CNBC they see the beginnings of global regulation of artificial intelligence by the end of this year, with French President Emmanuel Macron saying his country wants to work with the United States on rules around the fast-growing technology.
The comments come as interest in artificial intelligence, caused by the rapid growth of chatbot ChatGPT, continues to soar and governments around the world debate how to regulate the technology.
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But there is no global consensus on how to manage and control AI, with the United States, China and the European Union taking different approaches to rules around the technology. Any global regulatory framework would be a massive achievement.
France is looking to position itself as a European hub for AI development even as the European Union, of which France is a member, pushes forward with first-of-its-kind regulations.
Macron, Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire and Digital Technology Minister Jean-Noel Barrot spoke to CNBC on Wednesday at the VivaTech conference in Paris, expressing their desire for global regulation on artificial intelligence.
“From my point of view… I think we need a regulation and all players, even American players, agree with that. I think we need a global regulation,” Macron told CNBC’s Karen Tso on the sidelines of the event.
By the end of the year, Barrow said, “some of the core principles we’d like to emerge to regulate AI in G7 and like-minded countries will begin to emerge.”
The G7 includes countries such as France, Germany, the United States, and the United Kingdom. This year, countries agreed to set up a working group to look into problems that may arise from artificial intelligence.
Macron said the G7 and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, which groups 38 countries, would be a “good platform” for developing global regulation.
why now?
France’s concerns about EU law on artificial intelligence
France’s call for global regulation of artificial intelligence comes as the European Union is close to passing an unprecedented order A law called the European Union Artificial Intelligence Act. On Wednesday, the European Parliament approved the bloc’s landmark law, which looks to take a risk-based approach to regulating artificial intelligence.
Recent amendments to the law include a tougher stance on so-called generative AI, the kind of technology that powers OpenAI’s ChatGPT, which allows systems to generate images or respond in text to prompts. The regulation states that creative AI developers will be required to submit their systems for review before they are commercially released.
The law still needs to be approved by other EU bodies.
France, which has traditionally taken a pro-regulatory stance, has expressed concern that EU law on artificial intelligence has gone too far.
“My concern is that in the last few weeks the European Union Parliament … has taken a very strong position on regulating AI, somewhat using this AI as a way of trying to solve many problems at once,” he said on the provisions on generative AI. .
Focus on competition and partnership between the United States
Even as an EU-wide law continues to work through the legislative process, France is pushing for regulations on a global scale and sees the United States as a key ally.
“Competition is always a good thing,” Le Maire told CNBC on the sidelines of VivaTech. “So we have very close cooperation with the United States but we also want access to our information and companies in the field of artificial intelligence.”
“Also in terms of regulation, I think this is absolutely vital to have an in-depth discussion with the US authorities on how best to regulate AI,” he added.
The United States has not yet come up with any kind of framework for regulating AI. But US companies are among the most prominent in the space with OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT, as well as chipmaker Nvidia. leaders in space.
What do the French want in terms of organization?
Top French politicians who spoke to CNBC discussed their focus on regulating artificial intelligence.
“We want to make sure that this is safe and unbiased … that the linguistic models that we have are not biased and that what is … forbidden in society is forbidden in this model. So we need some rules,” Macron said.
Artificial intelligence like ChatGPT is trained on huge amounts of data called large language models that allow it to understand and respond to human language. But there are concerns that the data being trained on could cause the system to inherit biases.
Macron also said that if you’re watching a video or looking at an AI-generated image, the user has a right to know.
Ultimately, French politicians balance regulation that balances the need to protect technology users without stifling innovation.
“What we want is a regulation that provides protection for users … and establishes trust, but is also flexible enough to allow development in the next few weeks, the next few months in France and Europe,” said Barrow.
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