The Paris AI Action Summit, the latest in a series of high-profile gatherings to set the course of global AI policy, ended on Tuesday not with a bang but with a whimper. American Vice President JD Vance showed up, but Elon Musk — invited personally by French President Emmanuel Macron — notably did not join the crowd under the dome of the Grand Palais. And both the U.S. and U.K. refused to sign the main political declaration to emerge from the summit, a document that was supposed to promote open, inclusive and sustainable AI development. By Tuesday, it was clear that the major global powers present at the summit were diverging on AI — both from one another, and from the original mission of the summits. When the tech and diplomatic world began gathering around AI a year ago — first in the U.K.’s Bletchley Park, then virtually in Seoul — the conversation was sharply focused on safety and fairness. Those summits attempted to bring the world’s regulators together around a technology that threatened to outpace humanity itself. That sensibility — and sense of unity — was already vanishing by the time Macron, Vance, and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqin gathered this week. This year’s summit arguably marked a new era of global competition, in which countries are vying to fuel their own AI industries — most notably, the U.S. — unhindered by onerous regulation. There were some efforts at compromise between the go-go American sensibility and the more European-led push to keep a leash on the technology. Macron appeared to appease the Americans and the tech industry with a call to “simplify” European rules around AI innovation. Similarly, my colleagues in Europe reported that the European Commission’s tech boss, Henna Virkkunen, had tried to craft a middle ground from the sidelines of the summit on Monday. At La Maison de la Chimie — just before the first day’s afterparty kicked off, Virkkunen told POLITICO that the EU AI Act should not create “any extra burden” on tech companies but also that there was a fine balance between investing in AI and regulating it. By Tuesday morning, JD Vance blew that European diplomacy out of the water, with an emphatic speech about “AI opportunity” fueled by “unparalleled R&D investments.” When he did mention AI safety, it was to disparage the concept. Regarding regulatory collaboration between governments, Vance told his audience that their main shared goal would have to be acceleration: “To create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that fosters the creation of AI technology rather than strangles it.” There was also a note of threat. He also said that the Trump administration is “troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints,” calling it a “terrible mistake” that the U.S. “cannot and will not accept.” Echoing the new conversation in Washington, especially among Republicans, the American vice president prioritized energy supply and manufacturing, saying: “The AI future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety. It will be won by building, from reliable power plants to the manufacturing facilities that can produce the chips of the future.” Chinese Vice Premier Guoqing sounded a collaborative note in a speech Monday, saying China was “willing to work with other countries to safeguard security and share achievements in the field of artificial intelligence, and jointly build a community with a shared future for mankind,” the state media Xinhua news agency reported. Alexandra Reeve Givens, CEO of the progressive tech nonprofit Center for Democracy and Technology, who was a member of the summit’s steering committee and was in Paris for the event, said it was “stunning” that discussions about promoting safe and reliable AI systems were left to the Chinese. One notable way the Trump administration wasn’t entirely out of step with the world on AI regulation was when it came to competition concerns. Vance promised to keep “Big tech, little tech and all other developers on a level playing field.” This, too, took the form of a push for deregulation, however: Vance added that the entities pushing for the most stringent regulation were the “massive incumbents” in the field. Vance also tried to allay fears of AI-driven job loss in his speech. “This administration wants to be very clear about one last point: We will always center American workers in our AI policy,” he said, drawing an optimistic picture where workers would “reap the rewards [of AI] with higher wages, better benefits and safer and more prosperous communities.” Vance’s official X account followed up soon after with a promise to give American workers “a seat at the table” as the administration develops its AI policies. My colleague Pieter Haeck reported that Vance left soon after his speech, not waiting to hear all the leaders who spoke after him. Cold shoulder aside, Vance’s shout-outs to worker protections and preserving competition were enough to surprise some observers. Vance’s speech “was a lot more balanced than what some people were expecting,” said Chloe Autio, who runs the AI policy consultancy firm Autio Strategies and was at the summit. The rest of the world may be coming around to the American way of doing things. My European colleagues, Pieter Haeck, Tom Bristow and Océane Herrero, found global leaders at the summit — from India's Narendra Modi, Macron, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the U.K.'s tech secretary Peter Kyle — were much more concerned about winning the global AI race than worrying that the technology might trigger a human extinction event. “Europe is open for AI and for business,” von der Leyen posted on Bluesky on Tuesday. With Europe pledging to invest billions of euros into AI development and computing power during the summit, it’s clear that the U.S.’ Western allies are determined not to fall behind. On that front, at least, the Paris AI summit managed to yield a cohesive global agreement.
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