French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday called for stronger international regulation of artificial intelligence (AI), warning that its impact on democratic societies can no longer be ignored.
"We all want to harness the opportunities, productivity gains, changes, and improvements in health and digitalization that AI can bring," Macron said at the close of the G7 summit in Évian.
"But no one can any longer ignore the impact of AI on our democracies and our societies," he said, arguing that regulation was needed at the international level.
Against the backdrop of a recent US government-directed move by Anthropic to restrict access to some of its most advanced AI models for foreign nationals, Macron called for closer cooperation among democratic countries.
Better regulation of advanced AI systems was needed "to prevent them from falling into the hands of authoritarian regimes or individuals who could threaten our cybersecurity or our societies," he said.
Macron said several democratic powers would begin building a cooperation platform aimed at establishing common AI standards, including in the field of cybersecurity.
