Was The AI Summit In Paris A Missed Opportunity? – OpEd

By Simone Galimberti

Since the start of the Paris AI Action Summit, held on the 10th and 11th of February, the expectations were minimal.

Yet there was a trickle of hope that the gathering would succeed at maintaining a modicum focus on safety and security of artificial intelligence. Instead, the speeches resembled more business pitches.

There was a deliberate intent at attracting billions of investments to spur the unlimited potential of a new technology that has already become so pervasive to our lives.

Those at the Summit, concerned with the implications of an unregulated and unchecked AI could not find neither a glimpse of a symbolic traffic light nor of a guardrail, two images often invoked to slow down the crazy pace of AI development.

Instead, in the words of Kevin Rose of the New York Times, it was like “watching policymakers on horseback trying to install seatbelts on a passing Lamborghini”. Many wondered if there was a real intention, on the part of the policymakers in questions, to seriously set any standards at all.

Watching their speeches, each of them, from JD Vance, the new American Vice President, to the European Commission’s President, Ursula Von der Leyen, to President Macron of France to PM Modi of India, it seems like they were trying to outmatch each other.

It was like every single of them was trying to outperform the competitors, all generously offering free passes to the “racing circuit” of AI development. Only UN Secretary-General António Guterres tried with his speech, to take the moral high ground.

He remembered the audience of the high risks of a race to the bottom in developing and deploying AI tools that humanity, sooner than later, might lose control of.

Wide gap

Yet, at the same time, I can’t possibly imagine of a wider gap between the key messages emerged from the leaders and the discussions on the sidelines of the big speeches. Lots of cross cutting discussions related to the transformational shifts posed by artificial intelligence indeed took place.

Listening to the pro business talks by the political leaders, it comes easy to dismiss the fact that the whole initiative was grounded over five underlying central pillars of absolute importance.

Indeed, talking and tackling issues like Public Interest AI, The Future of Work, Innovation and Culture, Trust in AI and Global AI Governance, the key themes at Paris, remains central to ensure that the AI can be truly a force for good, rather than a force for self-destruction.

But, as anticipated, these complex discussions were inevitably overshadowed by the political impetus of harnessing the business potential of the AI revolution.

The United Nations, despite immense efforts over the last few years, to lead a global conversation on ethical AI development, appeared powerless, unable to steer the conversation.

This happened despite the engagement in Paris not only of the Secretary General but also of active presence of Mr. Amandeep Singh Gill, the United Nations Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology.

It is not that the two final outcomes of the Summit, the Paris Charter on Artificial Intelligence in the Public Interest and Statement on Inclusive and Sustainable Artificial Intelligence for People and the Planet, did not contain some references to the ethical imperatives that comes with AI.

But even a sympathetic reading of them cannot flip the narrative of an agenda brazenly centered on deregulating the rollout of AI.

Then how counter such intentional purpose of doing whatever it takes to incentivize the rushing to develop Artificial General Intelligence, a technology that, at minimum, will equal human capacities and, over the time, surpass them?

The only hope is that the United Nations won’t give up on its moral mission to promote AI safeguards, achieving a global consensus on deploying the “traffic lights”, “seatbelts” or any other precautionary tools indispensable for an ethical development of AI.

The problem is that global leaders do not care about them. Only PM Modi, in his speech, spoke of the SDGs and “to ensure that the AI future is for Good, and for All”.

But then even Mr. Modi was taken over by an overoptimistic view that AI won’t jeopardize millions and millions of jobs but rather will be a multiplier of them.

So, at the end of the day, it will be up to Mr. Guterres and Mr. Singh Gill to find a way to, once again, bring into the global agenda, the need of AI as a real force of good.

Nice words delivered in international summits like the upcoming 3rd UNESCO Global Forum on the Ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI) to take place from 24 to 27 June 2025 in Bangkok, won’t be nearly enough.

Nor the upgrading of Office of the Secretary-General’s Envoy on Technology into a new UN Office for Digital and Emerging Technologies (ODET) always under Mr. Singh Gill, as positive development as it is, will be sufficient.

The UN needs a new bold strategy that should include an effective public relation dimension that, even if cannot match the prowess of Silicon Valley, can at least challenge the mainstream narrative so dominating in Paris.

Involving and engaging big personalities like Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei who did not hesitate calling the Summit “a missed opportunity”, should be a top priority. The propositions set in Governing AI for Humanity, the groundbreaking report prepared by the UN AI Advisory Board, must be fully taken into consideration and they should become policies.

In Paris, unfortunately, it did not happen. If you look at them, none of them are even radical nor bold enough.

The UN’s efforts for truly setting up common rules and standards and a global governance architecture for the AI must be re-thought, starting from a complete re-branding. Indeed, if we need business-like pitches, these should come from the UN.

The stakes are too high for the UN to give up on its core mandate, saving humanity from the very probable and realistic possibility of AI induced mayhem.

• Simone Galimberti writes about the SDGs, youth-centered policy-making and a stronger and better United Nations.