EU chief Ursula von der Leyen warned Friday the bloc "must get it right" on the generational "turning point" of AI, as European leaders vowed to catch up in the race with China and the United States -- and tame the technology's risks.
"Every generation faces a technological turning point that shapes the decades ahead. For ours, it is artificial intelligence, and Europe must get it right," von der Leyen told a press conference in Dublin where the bloc held its first summit-level talks on AI. "We need to maximise the opportunities offered by AI, and we need to control all the risks of AI," European Council head Antonio Costa said.
French AI darling Mistral's chief executive Arthur Mensch and Nobel-prize winner Geoffrey Hinton, widely known as one of the "godfathers" of the technology joined the leaders' discussions on AI opportunities and dangers. "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."
"We have no time to lose," French President Emmanuel Macron echoed in a post on social media, adding he would host a meeting in Paris on December 2 with the Dutch prime minister alongside "tech creators".
EU chief von der Leyen said Europe's push for tech sovereignty would need "massive investment" of at least 500 billion euros ($550 billion), and vowed to present an "ambitious" proposal the next time leaders meet later this month. She also said an expert she tasked with driving AI adoption across industry would deliver the first recommendations within two weeks.
Despite the desire to exploit the potential of AI, the EU says it wants to protect citizens and businesses from the technology's growing risks. Former Google researcher Hinton "described very clearly the enormous risks he sees in AI", von der Leyen told reporters afterwards.
"He had a strong call on Europe to be the one who initiates a global governance around AI," she added. The EU has sweeping rules regulating 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.
The summit came 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.
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