France, the home of the Enlightenment, is renowned for technological and cultural achievements that have driven fundamental progress for humanity. From the steamboat and aviation to nuclear physics and cinema, France's innovations have boosted its economy and vastly improved the lives of its own people and the rest of the world. That makes it a natural place in Europe for talks on how to drive artificial intelligence (AI) forward and scale its economic benefits so that all of France and Europe share in the growth.
The upcoming Paris AI summit, hosted and convened under French President Emmanuel Macron, comes at a time when nations around the world – and particularly in Europe – are looking to spur their economies forward. In Europe, much of the conversation has focused on what former European Central Bank President Mario Draghi has called a European "innovation gap" with the United States and China that poses an "existential challenge" to the EU's future.
AI is at the heart of this challenge. It is a technology that drives productivity by putting tools in people's hands to help them solve hard problems – from better medical diagnoses, to accelerating scientific inquiry, to helping students learn in the classroom. It is why we think of this time as the start of the Intelligence Age.
A dynamic ecosystem
Around the world, countries looking to the future understand that AI will be on par with historic technological innovations – like electricity, the transistor or the personal computer – that have driven the kind of transformative productivity gains needed to grow the economic pie. Developing and building out the productivity capabilities of AI to generate the kind of sustained economic growth that will create jobs, improve healthcare, transform education, and push the boundaries of science will be critical to a nation's long-term economic success.
Managing the transition to the Intelligence Age will require governments around the world to work with the private sector to advance innovation and help give their citizens the confidence and ability to use the technology as a tool. And as world leaders gather in the City of Light, it is worth recognizing that France has created a playbook that other European nations should follow. The United Kingdom, which hosted the first such AI summit, and Germany are also aggressively charting a course forward.
You have 57.06% of this article left to read. The rest is for subscribers only.