The United States and United Kingdom have refused to sign an Artificial Intelligence Action Summit declaration calling for policies “ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy”.
The summit in Paris on Monday and Tuesday brought together representatives from more than 100 countries to discuss how to reach a consensus on guiding the development of AI.
“We are still in the early days, and I already believe AI will be the most profound shift of our lifetimes,” Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the summit.
The meeting, which was held amid a three-way race for AI dominance, revealed a divide in the priorities of some nations.
While Europe is seeking to regulate and invest, China is focused on expanding access through state-backed tech giants, and the US is pushing for a hands-off approach in terms of regulation.
Here’s what you need to know about the summit and the AI race:
What was discussed at the AI summit?
Some leaders at the summit emphasised the need for the creation of a diverse and inclusive AI “ecosystem” that is human rights-based, ethical, safe and trustworthy. Others voiced concerns that overregulation of the industry could stifle innovation and development of the technology.
The summit also underscored the importance of bridging digital divides and supporting developing countries in AI development to reduce inequalities and ensure broader access to AI benefits.
On day one, French President Emmanuel Macron, who co-hosted the summit with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, called the summit a “wake-up call for European strategy” as the continent has fallen behind in the AI development race.
After speeches and meetings by global leaders, the two-day summit concluded with a declaration outlining the fundamental ground rules for AI development that countries would adhere to.
What did the summit declaration say?
The countries that attended were asked to sign a Pledge for a Trustworthy AI in the World of Work, a nonbinding declaration.
The declaration outlined six main priorities:
- Promoting AI accessibility to reduce digital divides
- Ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all
- Making AI innovation thrive by enabling conditions for its development and avoiding market concentration driving industrial recovery and development
- Encouraging AI deployment that positively shapes the future of work and labour markets and delivers opportunity for sustainable growth
- Making AI sustainable for people and the planet
- Reinforcing international cooperation to promote coordination in international governance
Who signed the pledge and who did not?
Sixty countries signed the declaration, including Canada, China, France and India.
However, the US and UK did not sign the final statement.
Why were the US and UK opposed to the pact?
The US did not provide an official explanation for not signing.
However, in his speech at the summit, US Vice President JD Vance emphasised the administration’s concerns about excessive regulation stifling innovation in the AI sector.
He warned that stringent regulations could “kill a transformative industry” and criticised European regulatory frameworks for imposing “massive regulations” and creating “endless legal compliance costs” for companies.
Vance also expressed concerns that certain content moderation efforts could lead to “authoritarian censorship”.
As for the UK, a spokesperson for Prime Minister Keir Starmer said: “We felt that the declaration didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance and [didn’t] sufficiently address harder questions around national security and the challenge that AI poses to it.”
“Security remains a vital part of AI’s future, and we look forward to continuing discussions in this area.”
Who is winning the AI race?
The US appeared to have a solid grip on AI technology dominance, but in recent weeks, China has made a bang with the surprise global launch of DeepSeek, an AI chatbot similar to the US-built ChatGPT but which, its developers said, was developed for a fraction of the cost. Some countries have blocked access to DeepSeek, citing concerns about security and the way in which the system would handle the personal data of users.
Toby Walsh, chief scientist at the AI Institute at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said that at the moment, it is a two-country race between the US and China but added that the “race isn’t over”.
“There’s always the possibility that the tortoise will catch up with the hare, and we have certainly seen that with China. China has definitely caught up,” he told Al Jazeera.
However, Adrian Monck, former managing director at the World Economic Forum who specialises in AI and technology, said: “It’s quite important that we don’t look at this as a US-China issue – we look at this as a global issue that needs other countries … taking the lead.”
What has the US achieved in AI?
OpenAI immediately jumped to the front of the race when it launched ChatGPT on November 30, 2022.
ChatGPT became the fastest-growing consumer app in the world two months after its launch, attracting more than 100 million users by January.
From there, other competitors rushed to enter the race, such as Google’s Gemini and billionaire Elon Musk’s Grok.
US President Donald Trump made it clear from the start of his second term on January 20 that he has given full support for the development of AI in the US.
Last month, he announced a $500bn private sector investment to fund infrastructure for AI with the goal of outpacing rival nations in the development of this technology.
Calling it the largest AI infrastructure project in history “by far”, Trump said the joint venture involving OpenAI, Softbank and Oracle and called Stargate will build data centres and create more than 100,000 jobs in the US.
However, some bad blood has formed between two of OpenAI’s co-founders – CEO Sam Altman and Musk.
The two are embroiled in a lawsuit, and Musk has criticised Stargate, suggesting the investors involved lack the funding for the project. “They don’t actually have the money. … I have that on good authority,” Musk wrote this month on his social media platform X, formerly called Twitter.
On Monday, a consortium led by Musk said it has offered $97.4bn to buy the nonprofit that controls OpenAI.
Altman promptly posted on X: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
“There’s nothing stopping billionaires from being petty,” Walsh said.
What has China achieved?
In March 2023, China’s tech giant Baidu unveiled its answer to ChatGPT, a platform called Ernie Bot, which suffered from early stumbles as the AI race heated up.
But at the end of January, the Chinese startup DeepSeek sent shockwaves through the global tech sector with the release of its AI chatbot model, whose capabilities rival the creations of Google and OpenAI.
DeepSeek-R1’s creator says its model was developed using less advanced and fewer computer chips than employed by the US tech giants.
The model’s development team said it had spent less than $6m on computing power to train the model – a fraction of the multibillion-dollar AI budgets used by US tech giants.
Jody Westby, chief executive of Global Cyber Risk, a technology and advisory firm that provides cybersecurity services, said the approaches to the development of AI systems by OpenAI and DeepSeek are very different.
“The US has put a huge investment into artificial intelligence, but it has also placed export controls around it for critical areas for chips for cloud access … [and] the control of resources to develop it,” she told Al Jazeera.
Can Europe catch up?
Westby said part of the summit’s goal was to create a smoother and less complicated business environment in Europe for AI development.
“But I think it’s going to be very difficult to achieve,” she said. “I think there will be a lot of talk and very little walk because the European Union has already enacted the most comprehensive, broad, overarching law on the use and development of artificial intelligence of any area in the world.”
Westby added that it would be difficult to “unravel” the EU Artificial Intelligence Act because it has already gone into effect in some places.
Monck said he agreed with Macron’s opening statement at the summit.
“It is a wake-up call because it’s about economic growth,” he said. “If we don’t see the economic growth spreading out beyond the US to the rest of the world, then we’re going to have a very rocky few years to come.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/2/12/paris-ai-summit-why-wont-us-uk-sign-global-artificial-intelligence-pact?traffic_source=rss
