France's Macron to meet OpenAI's Sam Altman at Elysee

By Michel Rose and Tassilo Hummel

PARIS (Reuters) -French President Emmanuel Macron will meet Sam Altman, the Silicon Valley businessman who rose to fame with ChatGPT, on Tuesday to discuss the place of France and Europe in the global race for artificial intelligence (AI), his office said.

Altman, the chief executive of OpenAI who recently told the U.S. congress that things could "go quite wrong" when asked about the potential risk of AI, is one of the tech world's most prominent voices urging governments to rapidly come up with regulations to make sure AI is used responsibly.

He is currently on a trip through some European capitals for talks with political leaders.

Macron, who has been an ardent defender of France as a "startup nation", has tasked his government with offering attractive investment conditions for tech entrepreneurs from electronic car batteries to cryptocurrencies.

During his first year in office, Macron pledged he would fight to avoid France and Europe falling behind Chinese and U.S. giants when it comes to powerful new technologies.

Five years later, no European firm is among the leaders in the field of generative AI - pioneered largely by U.S companies including Microsoft-backed OpenAI and Alphabet - which experts say could upend the way societies and businesses operate.

The European Union is at the forefront of drafting new AI rules that could set the global benchmark to address privacy and safety concerns linked to the technology.

Altman and Macron will also discuss "the next steps in the journey of OpenAI" and "the main issues to come", including regulation, the Elysee said:

"They will discuss the issues related to the construction of an AI regulation ...which will allow reconciling ethical requirements and the protection of users and democracy, with the pursuit of innovation in the sector," it added.

Marie-Laure Denis, the head of France's data protection watchdog CNIL told a news conference earlier on Tuesday that her institution's vision "isn’t to slow down innovation but rather to accompany it".

Earlier this month, Macron received Tesla founder and CEO Elon Musk, who is also active in the AI sphere.

(Reporting by Michel Rose, Tassilo Hummel; Editing by Alexandra Hudson and Emelia Sithole-Matarise)

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