Catherine Field: Europe Correspondent on the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris

World leaders, tech bosses, and AI moguls have clashed at a Paris summit. 

The city's hosting the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit with French president Emmanuel Macron saying he wants to do better at leading in the field, but better governance and protections are needed. 

Paris correspondent Catherine Field told Mike Hosking talk of interfering with the largely unregulated social media sector has ruffled feathers, especially with US Vice President JD Vance. 

Vance says the US is angry over what he calls “restrictive censorship”. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
France. Catherer Field morning to you. Good morning mate, there's
a Macron announcement of one hundred and nine billion euros
for AI investment. Who's one hundred and nine billion? Is
he's spending there or is that all in the on
the neber Never.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Well, he says that various investment funds from the Gulf States, Canada, America,
quite a lot of French investment is going into that.
He's really all in on AI, Mike. Just essentially today
Monday here in France, and on Tuesday he's got this
big summit going on in Paris where we're seeing a
lot of the world leaders turn up there as well

(00:34):
as a open AI Boss Google Boss is there. What
he's saying, Mike, is that the technology is there, the
advanced technology is there, the NOHOW is there, and France
can really go at it now that in terms of innovation,
the companies have got what they need. And of course
the big change in all this that everyone's been looking

(00:55):
at has been the announcement that Deep Seek the Chinese
ability to develop AI showed that they could deal with
fewer resources. That was a real turning point the French
thing because it showed that AI could be developed much cheaper.
Research and developing costs much much cheaper, and it suddenly
became a highly competitive market. So that's what Macron is

(01:18):
hoping for. He says that the innovation is there, it
can be done, but you do, of course need to
have and this is where it all gets a bit
stick you might as well as what it will cost,
and the manpower that needs to be trained is governance.
And what he's relying on there is the fact that
the European Union later this year will come into effect

(01:39):
their binding rules on AI, and that really is sort
of quite firm on the specific uses of AI. The
higher risks such as manipulation, deception that won't be allowed,
that will be shut down, and of course other things
like disclosure obligations. People have to be told if they're
going to be talking to a chatpot, those sorts of things.

(02:01):
So also, you know, as well as the innovation, looking
at the ethical side of it, the conformity, and hoping
that more people will come forward with money, and of
course there's two hundred billion New Zealand dollars worth. It
looks a lot, but when you look at, say, for example,
what the Americans are putting into AI. Yeah, it's not there.
But of course this has upset the Americans, particularly Jdie Vance,

(02:24):
who's turning up here at anytime now. He said that
the Americans are really very angry about what he calls
censorship of American platforms in Europe.

Speaker 1 (02:33):
Okay, let me come back to that, JD in just
a couple of moments. Because AI is taken tech as
X and X has got trouble. Is this a big
deal with probe and France Iberix.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
It is a big deal, mostly because cybercrime has really
been treated here in France pretty much the same as
computer hacking. They regarded as if you've got a social
media platform, you have got a responsibility, so you cannot
do things like algorithm, you cannot have interference from management.

(03:04):
And so we've got this case that's just been put
forward by the Saber Crime Prosecutor's office saying that X
has been favoring propaganda and it's own messaging over real news.
So they're saying that's actually not right, it is biased news.
They also say that there's allegations that's hateful, racist content

(03:26):
that's aimed at not just hurting people but also skewing
the democratic debate, So that's got a lot of interest
here as well as last week in Germany at German
court ordered X to hand over all of the data
it had collected on politically related content. Again, we're looking
at engagement data, so trying to make X as responsible

(03:48):
as it can in what is becoming a very difficult
democratic debate here in Europe.

Speaker 1 (03:53):
Just back to JD is does he know do you reckon?
He knows what Donald's thinking about tariffs? Or he just
sort of comes in and sees a whole lot of
random stuff. And how worried about tariffs in general are you?
And is our terriffs even being talked about with JD?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Well, it's going to be a very interesting getting to
know you, isn't it. Mate. This is the first time
that they're going to actually get to see him in
the flash talk to him. No one's quite sure what
to expect, especially when it comes to these tariffs. What's
he going to talk about? Also, don't get Later on
this week he's going to be at the Munich Security
conference where he's supposed to be meeting Selensky, So no

(04:28):
one knows. We've been hearing all this stuff, and of
course the big question will be even if what he says,
you know, finds the residence here, is that really what
Donald Trump is thinking? And will that still be the case?
Twelve hours later?

Speaker 1 (04:41):
Yeah, I was just watching him. Riah, finally enough. I
know he's brought his whole family, including three kids. So
at least they sent him off to Disneyland. I guess I.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
Suppose they can go to Disneyland. It's raining, it's really
grotty February weather, so they might not enjoy it.

Speaker 1 (04:55):
Then, all right, Nice to see Katherine Casperfield in France.
By the way, just before we leave Europe, I'm reading
headline house Spain's economy became the envy of Europe. And
you know how they did it? Gosh, they did it
with tourism. They are at rivaling France for the ninety
four million people went to Spain last year. I mean
a few of them got squirted with water guns. But
big that as it may, It seriously affected the economy.

(05:16):
France does about one hundred million industries. Tourism industry's post
COVID expansion major reason why the Eurozone's fourth biggest economy
is easily outgrowing Germany, France, Italy, The United Kingdom their
GDP last year growth growth growth member growth three point
two percent, and they did it with tourism. There's an
idea for more from the mic Asking Breakfast.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
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