Paris (AFP) May 22, 2024 -
Thousands of tech enthusiasts are expected to start filing into Europe's self-declared biggest startup event VivaTech in Paris on Wednesday, which this year will focus on artificial intelligence.The four-day event, now in its eighth year, will host more than 150,000 guests, 11,000 startups and 450 speakers, according to the organisers.
While former US climate envoy and secretary of state John Kerry is expected to make a push for a green tech revolution, billionaire Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk will appear via video link to answer audience questions.
Francois Bitouzet, director general of VivaTech, told AFP this year's event would be focusing on the "hard stuff".
"We want to stop the theoretical discussions on AI and get into concrete innovations," he said.
A slew of startups will be showing how AI can be used in every field from medical prosthetics to the fight against disinformation.
They will be joined established players like ChatGPT maker OpenAI, which will be outlining its latest tools for developers.
- 'AI tsunami' -
In the face of this "AI tsunami", said Ben Wood of CCS Insight, companies should be careful not to overwhelm their potential customers.
"There's a lot of exciting things about AI, but you need to very clearly articulate what the benefits are consumers," he told AFP.
"Because we are rapidly approaching AI fatigue, when people just tune out."
The event regularly attracts major political figures, with EU heavyweights Thierry Breton and Charles Michel expected to attend.
However, French President Emmanuel Macron, a regular attendee, is unlikely to take part this year.
Macron is instead set to visit the French territory of New Caledonia, more than 15,000 kilometres from Paris.
The Pacific territory has suffered days of unrest after indigenous Kanaks rejected changes to voting rules that would have boosted the influence of people who had arrived recently.
16 top AI firms make new safety commitments at Seoul summit
Seoul (AFP) May 21, 2024 -
More than a dozen of the world's leading artificial intelligence firms made fresh safety commitments at a global summit in Seoul on Tuesday, the British government said in a statement.
The agreement with 16 tech firms -- which include ChatGPT-maker OpenAI, Google DeepMind and Anthropic -- builds on the consensus reached at the inaugural global AI safety summit at Bletchley Park in Britain last year.
"These commitments ensure the world's leading AI companies will provide transparency and accountability on their plans to develop safe AI," UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said in a statement released by Britain's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
Under the agreement, the AI firms that have not already shared how they assess the risks of their technology will publish those frameworks, according to the statement.
These will include what risks are "deemed intolerable" and what the firms will do to ensure that these thresholds are not crossed.
"In the most extreme circumstances, the companies have also committed to 'not develop or deploy a model or system at all' if mitigations cannot keep risks below the thresholds," the statement added.
The definition of these thresholds will be decided ahead of the next AI summit, due to be hosted by France in 2025.
The firms that have agreed on the safety rules also include US tech titans Microsoft, Amazon, IBM and Instagram parent Meta; France's Mistral AI; and Zhipu.ai from China.
In his opening remarks, South Korea's President Yoon Suk Yeol flagged "growing concerns over potential risks and negative impacts of AI, including fake news through deepfake and the digital divide."
"Since the digital space is hyper-connected and transcends national borders, we need digital norms at the global level," he added.
- Danger of 'deepfakes' -
The stratospheric success of ChatGPT soon after its 2022 release sparked a gold rush in generative AI, with tech firms around the world pouring billions of dollars into developing their own models.
Generative AI models can generate text, photos, audio and even video from simple prompts, and its proponents have heralded them as a breakthrough that will improve lives and businesses around the world.
But critics, rights activists and governments have warned that they can be misused in a wide variety of situations, including the manipulation of voters through fake news stories or so-called "deepfake" pictures and videos of politicians.
Many have called for international standards to govern the development and use of AI, and have called for action at summits such as the two-day gathering in Seoul this week.
In addition to safety, the Seoul summit will discuss how governments can help spur innovation, including into AI research at universities.
Participants will also consider ways to ensure the technology is open to all and can aid in tackling issues such as climate change and poverty.
The Seoul summit comes days after OpenAI confirmed that it had disbanded a team devoted to mitigating the long-term dangers of advanced AI.
"The field of AI safety is quickly evolving and we are particularly glad to endorse the commitments' emphasis on refining approaches alongside the science," Anna Makanju, OpenAI's vice president of global affairs, said in the statement announcing the new commitments on Tuesday.
The two-day summit will be partly virtual, with a mix of closed-door sessions and some open to the public in Seoul.
