This week, more than 60 nations gathered in Paris for a AI summit that was supposed to bring together world powers to determine a global agenda for the fast -developing technology. Instead, it turned out that some divergence.
In recent years, the European Union has pursued an aggressive regulation of Big Tech, examined large American companies such as Google and Apple and passed several laws that facilitate more precisely monitoring of their activities. In the meantime, the Trump administration has made the technical deregulation into a central part of its agenda and promises to remove bureaucracy that the industry says that it is reimbursed for innovation.
As dozens of countries such as Canada, China, Australia and France, signed a document that promised an accessible and integrative approach for AI development, the USA opted for this – but also Great Britain that raised the eyebrows among the participants and in the media .
“What we see here is this tension between one of the desire to drive the economy through AI innovation, and on the other hand, the need to regulate it,” said Teresa Scassa, professor at the University of Ottawa, the Canadian research chairman for Has information right and policy.
Vance Rails against “excessive” regulation
In the United States, for example, large AI companies are located that “free rule wants to be innovative, and where this innovation puts it in the foreground to promote the economy. All attempts to regulate it will slow down,” she said.
In the meantime, the United Kingdom – which has seen an economic downturn since Brexit, is trying to position itself as an alternative to the more conservative approach of the EU for AI regulation, she said.
A spokesman for the British Prime Minister Keir Strandmer said that the country would only invest in initiatives that are in its “national interests”.
The American attitude to AI regulation was made much clearer by comments by Vice President JD Vance, who spoke at the summit and criticized the conservative approach of the EU and said that excessive regulation would kill the industry.
Then he seemed to warn countries against working with China, as this would make it vulnerable to espionage, he said.
China, which was criticized for a long time because of his human rights spokes, signed in the main document of the summit. This surprised some observers when the promise demanded a sustainable and human rights approach to the development of AI.
US President Donald Trump has increased a record of company donations for his inauguration, of which millions of CEOs of large technology companies such as Google, Apple, Amazon and Meta were donated. Andrew Chang explains the change in Trump’s relationships with these industry leaders since his first term and the symbolism of her proximity to the president. Pictures of Getty Images, Reuters and the Canadian press.
The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has used Vance’s characterization of his regulatory environment and hopes that Europe will be a AI leader at the summit, but with its own “distinctive approach” to get there.
You and other European civil servants recently questioned the perception that the relatively difficult regulations of the EU mean that it is not open to innovations. On the contrary, she said at the Paris event.
“The AI race is far from over. The truth is, we are only at the beginning. The border is constantly moving and the global leadership can still be won.”
Macron says the EU leaves
Florian Martin-Bariteau, Associate Law Professor at the University of Ottawa, who took part in the summit, says that France has also taken a different attitude than the guests.
The French President Emmanuel Macron, who was the summit in common alongside India’s Narendra Modi, hit a bullish tone and mostly broke the rest of the messing of the EU. He suggested that the economic coalition could have gone too far in regulating the technology, and said its countries “remained”.
But probably “the biggest surprise for many people” was that the final explanation, which was signed at the Paris Summit-a non-binding promise, which is more of a strong political explanation of the agenda setting more acted than expected, with just a few details about Regulation. Security and misinformation.
A major disturbance this week hit the sector for artificial intelligence, as Deepseek, a chat bot based in China, his latest AI models-equipped for only $ 6 million. This is a fraction of the costs that US companies usually spend, trigger turbulence under large tech players and their shares decrease. Philippe Beaudoin, AI researcher and CEO from Numeno.ai, weighs what this means for the industry.
A similar summit in London last summer focused on the potential existential risks of AI, said Martin-Bariteau. This time it seemed to have less priority, he said and showed a grant in the approach to regulating the countries.
“It could be a wonderful technology, but we have also seen in the past few months that depending on how it was developed or who uses this technology, it is quite risky and has a real influence” use in global mixture of election.
Other critics of the document considered that security and inclusion language in the final agreement had been reduced to address the new US administration and its large technical allies. Some reports indicate that Great Britain pursued the US leadership after the United States that the United States did not sign – this denied this in a statement and cited vague national security concerns.
Companies that are frightened by over -regulated countries
Some large technology companies have drawn from regions that they find over-regulated, said Olivier Blais, co-founder of the Montreal Consulting company MOOV AI.
This was the case in the European Union, which last year passed its own regulation of the technology by the EU AAI law. A competition law called Digital Markets Act also passed, which was partially issued in 2023. Apple quoted the latter into account why there are no functions, including Apple Intelligence, in the region, he said.
The growing influence of Silicon Valley billionaires was fully equipped in the inauguration of US President Donald Trump and increased the warning of the predecessor before the rise of a “technical industrial complex” in America. Jonathan Montpetit from CBC collapses how the richest technical broses in the world of Trump became and what they want in return.
He adds that what they call in the AI industry as commercial obstacles. “It is bad from a consumer perspective because they have no access to these tools,” he said.
But this lack of access can also lead to people think more critically about the technology: “Is it really responsible? Is it really certain to use these tools? It’s a very legitimate question,” he said. “As many people use these tools without asking questions.”
Regulatory environment increasingly complex
Scassa, the Uottawa professor, said that the deviation between the USA and the EU brings to the two largest trading partners when regulating artificial intelligence, with several existential questions.
Canada currently has no comprehensive legislation that regulates AI. The Federal Government proposed such a law last year, but it died when Parliament was brought up in January. Questions about regulation – if at all – have been in the air since then.
Since the technology becomes more complex, it also added the regulatory environment, it added, with concerns about public security, misconceptions and disinformation and the climate effects.
“Some of the priorities change and can change differently for different countries.”
