Macron defends EU AI rules
New Delhi: French President Emmanuel Macron has hit back at US criticism of Europe’s efforts to regulate AI, vowing to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s presidency of the G7.
Speaking at the AI Impact summit in Delhi, the French president called for tougher safeguards after global outrage over Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot being used to generate tens of thousands of sexualised images of children, and amid mounting concern about the concentration of AI power in a handful of companies.
His remarks were echoed by António Guterres, the UN secretary general, who told delegates – including several US tech billionaires – that “no child should be a test subject for unregulated AI”.
“The future of AI cannot be decided by a few countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires,” Guterres said. “AI must belong to everyone”.
Macron told the intergovernmental summit: “Opposite to what some misinformed friends have been saying, Europe is not blindly focused on regulation. Europe is a space for innovation and investment, but it is a safe space, and safe spaces win in the long run.”
Research published this month by Unicef and Interpol across 11 countries found at least 1.2 million children reported having their images manipulated into sexually explicit deepfakes in the past year. In some countries, one in 25 children – the equivalent of one child in every classroom – had been affected.
“There is no reason our children should be exposed online to what is legally forbidden in the real world,” Macron said. “Our platforms, governments and regulators should be working together to make the internet and social media a safe space. This is why, in France, we are embarking on a process to ban social networks for children under 15 years old.”
Meanwhile, an attempt by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to stage a show of unity among leading tech billionaires went awry when the rival heads of OpenAI and Anthropic awkwardly declined to hold hands on stage.
Bill Gates had been scheduled to speak but withdrew at the last minute amid renewed scrutiny of his past links to the convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.