In an interview with the regional press on Friday and an exclusive interview at the microphone of France 2, Sunday, since the Grand Palais, Emmanuel Macron brought the project and the objectives of France in terms of AI.
Emmanuel Macron Back at the center of the game. More in the shadows since the dissolution of the National Assembly last spring, the President of the Republic takes over after the light has shone more on his various prime ministers. Between Friday, February 7 – in the columns of the regional daily press – and Sunday, February 9, in an interview of thirty minutes granted to France 2 from the Grand Palais, he drew up the contours of the France project to be part of Great Powers of AI in the future and try to compete with the two behemoths that are the United States and China. At the same time, the World Summit of Artificial Intelligence is in full swing in Paris.
An “battle of independence” against the United States and China
While an infernal rhythm is imposed by the two Tech Cadors in terms of artificial intelligence – the United States and China – Emmanuel Macron intends to follow them out and not to miss “the Revolution” From AI, otherwise, France could simply “lose control”, in the words of the president. For him, it is not only a question of development and technological in the first sense of the term, but rather of an “battle of independence”. “If Europe seizes this subject, simplifies, accelerates, it has a card to play” against the monsters of the sector. “Today, everything is possible if we have a strategy and a real awakening,” he launched last Friday in the columns of different regional daily press titles.
Thursday, February 6, France was acting a partnership with the Arab Emirates to build the largest “data center” in Europe devoted to artificial intelligence. This campus will benefit from a calculation capacity of up to a Giga Whatt, “which represents investments of an order of magnitude of 30 to 50 billion euros”, announced the Élysée. This campus will be developed by “a consortium of Franco-Emiratis champions”, and in particular by the investment fund MGX, backed by the United Arab Emirates, it is said. Foreign investment funds such as Canada and French companies such as telecom operators Illiad and Orange, as well as the Thales electronics group should also be part of the project.
100,000 researchers trained and 109 billion euros in investment
“We need more economic and European patriotism” and “a plan” for “new supercomputer at European level” he assures. “You have to go there, buy French and European AI every time it exists!”, He continues. Emmanuel Macron simply intends to make France the “leading country” of the European continent. To achieve this, “we are going to go from 40,000 to 100,000 researchers in AI formed” by 2030. This is the first promise of the future – and ambitious – of the President of the Republic. This Sunday, February 9, the Head of State also assured that the AI technological was going to “never replace man, I don’t believe that at all” he said.
The latter also made a shock announcement this Sunday, February 9 since the Grand Palais at the microphone of France 2: “109 billion euros of investment in the AI in the coming years” on the part of France, but also the foreigner.“This is the equivalent for France of what the United States announced with ‘Stargate’. This is the same report,” said Emmanuel Macron.
Emmanuel Macron is also aware of a potential setback of the medal, and the distrust clearly displayed by the world of culture, among others. For him, “even in culture, AI can be for the right one, since it can be an instrument of creation”. The Head of State also intends to “create a framework for people who use AI”, so that they have “copyright”. “I hear this fear, I mean here that France will continue to have a clear voice, that is to say that which protects the specificity of genius, talent, recognition of rights, this property”, he explains to try to reassure skeptics.
“Revolutionary work” especially in the medical
The second fear concerns the potential destruction of jobs. Is the success of the AI conditional to the extinction of certain trades in France? According to Emmanuel Macron, artificial intelligence will rather “revolutionize the way of working”, in particular concerning professions with “very repetitive” tasks. It should make it possible to “rethink time and work planning”, and even “create new sectors”. With journalists, he also unveiled the creation of an “International Observatory on all these developments”.
In certain sectors such as the medical, Emmanuel Macron intends to pass the second. Today, “with images of scanner sou of MRI we take several hours to identify cancer cells”, he regretted on the set of France 2, this Sunday, February 9. “With the AI, because we put a lot of data together, that there is a calculation capacity, we will see much faster the cancerous tumor and above all target the place more precisely” to treat, he. The development of artificial intelligence will therefore make it possible to “prevent better, to detect much more simply” and to “treat much more precisely” diseases.
Macron requires “global regulation” of AI
The latter also tried to reassure, once again concerning the supervision of the AI, highlighting “strong principles on the protection of rights, the environment, the integrity of information, intellectual property”. Sunday evening, he called for a “global regulation” of the AI, “so that the good behaviors emerge”. A job which, according to him, “must be done on a planet’s scale”.
“Tomorrow you will have a creation by artificial intelligence”, that is why, “it must be clear for everyone otherwise we enter a world of half-truth”. The head of state wanted to be clear about the question: “We must tell us when it is AI and when it is not”. Finally, he wants algorithms to be as transparent as possible, so that users can “look at them, check them” if necessary.