World and tech leaders gather at AI Summit in Paris

This time, safety concerns will take a backseat

Pressure is building on the EU to drop the guardrails in AI development. The Paris Summit will focus on innovation and securing further investment, rather than examining risk.

World and tech leaders are convening in Paris to discuss issues such as whether the regulation of generative AI will harm the innovative capacity of the technology and how to meet the energy demands of the sector.

Political leaders including India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi will be attending the summit alongside US vice-president, JD Vance, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, and the German chancellor, Olaf Scholz. China will be represented by the vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing and the UK by Technology Secretary Peter Kyle.

Leading tech figures attending include the Google boss Sundar Pichai, Deep Mind co-founder Demis Hassabis and the seemingly omnipresent OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.

The AI Act made it to the European statute book last August and remains the most comprehensive set of rules anywhere in the world governing AI development.

However. since the passing of the AI Act last year, Donald Trump and his merry band of tech bros are now running the show in the US, and the likes of Mark Zuckerberg have made it clear that they expect Trump to push against any regulation of their activity in this regard.

Trump has obliged, revoking an executive order on AI safety from the preceding administration and prompting the senior leadership of the US AI Safety Institute to step down. The Institute will not be represented in Paris, and as Elon Musk’s DOGE continues to put a wrecking ball through the machinery of US government infrastructure, it seems unlikely to continue its work.

The focus of previous summits on the risks of generative AI development has faded, with far more attention being paid to spokespeople for the industry such as Altman who continue to insist that they be allowed to do, basically whatever they like, because they are innovating.

EU leaders such as summit host President Macron, are arguing in favour of a lightly applied AI Act, arguing that a heavier handed approach to enforcement would hobble European AI start-ups.

"There's a risk some decide to have no rules and that's dangerous. But there's also the opposite risk, if Europe gives itself too many rules," Macron told regional French newspapers.

We should not be afraid of innovation," he said.

In an interview with The Guardian this morning, Peter Kyle said he would be attending the summit to argue the necessity of western liberal democracies leading in AI development, an aspiration that has taken a blow of late with the launch of DeepSeek’s newest LLM.

Another subject on the agenda will be the energy requirements of the sector and the issue of copyrighted material being used to train LLMs.