EU leaders told to 'act now' to stay in AI race

The leaders heard from Mensch and Nobel-prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as one of the "godfathers" of AI, as they discussed how Europe can balance its AI ambitions with its desire to protect citizens from the growing risks posed by the technology.

AI (Artificial Intelligence) letters and robot hand are placed on computer motherboard in this illustration taken, June 23, 2023. REUTERS/Dado Ruvic/Illustration

The EU must "act now" to ensure Europe stays in the AI race with the United States and China, French AI firm Mistral's chief executive Arthur Mensch told a summit of the bloc's leaders on Friday.

The leaders heard from Mensch and Nobel-prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as one of the "godfathers" of AI, as they discussed how Europe can balance its AI ambitions with its desire to protect citizens from the growing risks posed by the technology.

"Europe has all the technology and the talent to lead the AI race," Mensch, whose company is considered Europe's leading AI model developer, told the leaders, according to comments shared with AFP.

"What it needs now is speed, financing and a strong coordination between member states."

He said the decisions taken over the next two years would shape the industry for the next decade.

"That is why we call on European leaders to act now. For now, the choice is still ours," he said.

Mistral has pushed for Europe to charge ahead on AI, in contrast to calls by US CEOs including OpenAI's Sam Altman and Anthropic's Dario Amodei this year to slow down AI development.

Top EU official Roberta Metsola said she was tired of hearing that Europe had "somehow lost the AI race".

"We have world class talent, we have a great... ecosystem from a technology perspective," the president of the European Parliament told reporters before the informal summit began.

- 'Dark side of AI' -

The summit comes against the backdrop of a scandal roiling Nvidia, a central player in the AI industry and a huge investor in the EU, after revelations CEO Jensen Huang had extramarital affairs -- including with a woman accused of spying for China.

Nvidia has had hundreds of billions of dollars wiped from its value and continued to drop on Friday and broader tech stocks were also struggling, as traders digested Huang's resignation a day earlier.

Former Google researcher Hinton joined the EU leaders discuss how to protect rights as well as the security challenges posed by the technology.

Hinton and fellow computer scientist Yoshua Bengio warned of AI's threats in the months after the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT in 2022, which kickstarted the latest AI frenzy.

EU foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas warned of a "dark side of AI".

"We can all already see this in the battlefield in Ukraine, where you have drones equipped by artificial intelligence to really train to find anybody to kill," Kallas said.

Estonia and Finland said in a letter this week that Europe needed to "establish EU-level arrangements for responding to serious AI incidents", calling for "developing advanced AI and governing it responsibly".

Pointing to past overdependence on non-EU suppliers for fossil fuels and critical minerals, Estonia's Prime Minister Kristen Michal told AFP: "We should not make the same mistake. We should invest in new technologies."