A summit to act on Artificial Intelligence: an international summit for an ethical, sustainable and inclusive AI

“The AI revolution is about to transform jobs, education, culture and economies throughout the world”. This is how the presidential information website describes the context of this new international summit, which trails the Bletchley Park Summit (November 2023) and the Seoul Summit (May 2024), but is part of a broader perspective, since “a large number of countries and sectors will be represented in order to make this summit as inclusive as possible”. 

Five main pillars to serve the general interest

The Paris Summit, campaigning for “ethical, sustainable and inclusive AI”, will focus on five “main pillars” forming the basis of the preparatory work. 

The first is “AI in the service of the general interest” or “the public interest”.  According to the Summit organisers, AI should be seen as “a political technology to be directed towards economic, social and environmental progress”. The objectives of the Summit are to: 

• encourage the “development of less costly models” to serve such general interest;
• promote access to “structured data that respects individual freedoms” to generate progress, particularly in the health and environment fields;
• develop more widespread access to computing power;
• train future talent on a global scale.

The second main pillar is “the future of work” based on the principle that “the integration of artificial intelligence is transforming labour markets, job content, tasks and ways of working”. In such context, the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence seeks to facilitate “international exchanges on the future of work and build on existing initiatives”, with a view in particular to: 

• improve “our understanding of AI systems and their uses” to better anticipate their consequences on the world of work, training and education;
• promote the deployment of AI “in the service of productivity, skills development and well-being at work”.

The third pillar is “innovation and culture”. The aim is to “boost technological excellence in the service of innovation and artistic creation”. However, as the website points out, “while AI has already made it possible to speed up the creation and distribution of cultural goods, it sometimes calls into question the economic model for creation and the remuneration of intellectual property”. 

In this line of idea, the Summit will entice participants to:

• discuss the sharing of “value and systems likely to facilitate access to the resources that are critical for the development of AI”;
• stress with emphasized importance the “cultural and linguistic diversity”, in line with the Francophonie Summit. A “shared approach by holders of rights-free cultural data could play a key role on these matters”, adds the site.

The need for international collaboration

The fourth pillar is “trusted artificial intelligence”. Noting that the fast-paced development of AI is a “source of deep changes generating many positive opportunities”, the Summit should also consider the “considerable risks to the continuity of our social and economic models”. In line with previous summits, the Summit for Action on Artificial Intelligence will try to “present in a global, open and positive way the international community’s determination to develop confidence in AI”. To this end, action will focus on:

• the fight against “information manipulation”, particularly on social networks;
• the impact of AI on cybersecurity, and vice versa;
• identifying and controlling higher risks that could arise from the uncontrolled use of AI;
• defining standards for measuring these risks, which “could be a point of international convergence”.

And finally, the “global governance of AI”, last point stemming from the four previous pillars. The Paris Summit, which fears a “major risk of fragmentation” in the field of artificial intelligence, aims to define “common ground for international AI governance”. This new “defined collectively global architecture”, will take account of existing initiatives to promote other actions on an international scale, such as:

• the ongoing search for a “robust scientific consensus on the development of AI technologies, their uses and their consequences for our societies”;
• the definition of a framework enabling the creation of “open solutions and interoperable technical and auditing standards”;
• the convergence of “standards and public policies specific to AI”.