Paris AI Summit co-chaired by Prime Minister Modi: India’s Focus

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Introduction

To invoke dialogue and participation on issues related to safety and regulation of artificial intelligence, the first Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit was held in the UK in November 2023 with aim to make it a recurring annual event.¹ This was followed by the 2024 AI Seoul Summit, co-hosted by the South Korean and British governments on 21–22 May 2024² . The third edition of AI summit, christened as ‘Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit,’ was held in Paris from 10 to 11 February 2025 and was co-chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and French President Emmanuel Macron. Owing to the growing global consensus to leverage the potential of AI, mitigate associated misuse risks and regulate AI ecosystem, in Paris the participation of various stakeholders grew to 1,000 from more than 100 countries as compared to a handful of participants from 29 countries in the first summit at UK.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) on the Cusp of Revolutionizing the World

In the technology arena, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as one of the most critical technologies with strategic and economic consequences of unparalleled magnitude and importance. Developments in the field of AI are taking place at an unprecedented pace, transforming human lives across the spectrum. AI-driven intelligent machines capable of emulating human cognitive abilities could augment and complement anthropological Intelligence and enrich human lives in ways beyond comprehension. The profound paradigm transformation perpetuated by AI has impacted lives in unimaginable ways. This has given rise to several ethical, moral, technological, societal, political, financial and cultural issues that need collective efforts, wisdom, and technical know-how of governments, researchers, academia, and industry for consensus-based resolutions.

For every person and each nation, to leverage AI for individual and mutual benefits, there is a need to build an agnostic AI ecosystem that is not tied, controlled or governed by a select few. The future of AI has deep political overtones, one of sovereignty and strategic independence³ for which global consensus among various stakeholders is a prerequisite. For each one of us to have unbridled access to tools, methods and opportunities offered by AI, these need to be agnostic, inclusive and accessible.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit in Paris

To garner the attention of the global community to the perils and potential of AI, a day prior to commencement of Summit, French President Emmanuel Macron posted his own AI generated fake videos in which he was seen dancing, singing and impersonating a US action hero. At the end of video, President Macron appeared as himself lauding the potential of AI in bringing paradigm changes in healthcare, energy and life⁴.

For the conference, in his opening address, Prime Minster Modi as co-chair said that the ubiquity of AI is already re-shaping our polity, economy, security and even our

society. In its impact, ubiquity, applicability and usability, AI is very different from other technology breakthroughs in human history.⁵ The scale and speed of development, followed by even greater pace of adoption and deployment of AI is likely to continue unprecedentedly. The deep inter-dependence and linkages of commonality that transcend national borders call for collective global efforts to establish governance and standards. In his speech Prime Minister stressed on⁶ :-

(a) Pooling-in of resources and talent.
(b) Development of open-source systems for enhanced trust and transparency.
(c) Building quality data sets, free from biases
(d) Democratise AI technology and create people-centric applications
(e) Address concerns related to cyber security, disinformation, and deep fakes.
(f) Rooting AI technology in local ecosystems to make it effective and useful.

Prime Minister further stated that the fears that greater adoption of AI would result in loss of jobs are unfounded; rather AI would transform the nature of jobs as well as would be key to creating new job opportunities.⁷

The Declaration at AI Action Summit

During the summit, the statement, on “inclusive and sustainable artificial intelligence for people and the planet”⁸ , underscoring the importance for reinforcing the diversity of the AI ecosystem, was prepared. This declaration envisaged a multi-stakeholder and inclusive approach towards AI to bridge the inequality chasm among countries and bolster AI capacity-building efforts of developing countries. The statement highlighted the potential impacts of AI on the present job market and its implications for the workplace. The statement stressed the need for dialogues and cooperation among major stakeholders on AI governance and reaffirmed the commitment to a global dialogue on AI Governance. A total of 58 countries signed the final declaration affirming

their commitment to fostering the AI ecosystem under the envisaged provisions of the declaration. However, the conspicuous absence of names of two countries from the list of signatory nations i.e. the US and the United Kingdom made the news headlines.

The US and UK refusal to sign the Declaration

The decision of UK government not to sign the declaration caught many by surprise as UK hosted the first AI Safety Summit at Bletchley in November 2023. The ‘Bletchley Declaration’ called for global cooperation to tackle associated AI risks⁹ . In a statement, the UK government attributed its refusal to sign citing concerns about national security and “global governance.”¹⁰ The US Vice President JD Vance, who attended the summit, while defending the US decision to not sigh the declaration, said that intrusive regulation of AI could deliver a death blow to this fledgling transformative industry especially in US. He said that US sees AI as too valuable to fritter away due to restrictive regime.

There have been reactions from some quarters that AI Action Summit in Paris fell short of expectations particularly due to refusal by the US and UK to sign the final declaration of the summit. The statement of US Vice President is being seen as an impediment to consensus building over global approach to AI ecosystem. He made it amply clear that the US consider global regulation and all-pervasive safety as the stumbling blocks for this developing technology. In an indirect reference to China, in the context of AI technologies US Vice President cautioned against cooperation with “authoritarian” regimes. It is believed that the US refusal to sign the final declaration stemmed from the success of Chinese ‘DeepSeek’, which in weeks preceding the summit offered capabilities comparable to established US AI giants but at a fraction of the cost. The aura of awe and veneration enjoyed by US based AI companies was blown to smithereens and their stock value plummeted.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Governance Framework

The incessant proliferation of AI into the public sphere has necessitated the importance of having a viable and workable AI governance framework. The AI governance framework also needs to incorporate guidelines, processes and standards for ethical use of AI systems and safety of AI users. An AI governance model needs to embed ethical and societal values during design and development of AI systems. For this, all stakeholders including AI developers, users, policymakers and governments need to pitch in and contribute. The AI governance framework should not be construed as an bstacle to its growth but a drive engine for innovations and fostering trust.

In the near future, artificial intelligence will permeate significant aspects of our lives in consequential and impactful ways. The personal, societal and global changes, mediated and bolstered by AI will be transformative, disruptive and consequential. For AI to remain altruistic, agnostic and benign, the global governance framework needs to encompass and address issues related to equitability, safety, ethics, privacy, data protection, information integrity and sovereignty. Designing and empowering AI systems, emulating or even exceeding human decision-making capabilities has its own set of challenges.

The global consensus on having a universal regulatory framework to govern the AI ecosystem has still not been reached. One of the overriding reasons could be that the issues impinging on the widespread acceptance of a standard set of rules are heterogeneous and subject to individualistic interpretation. These include issues related to safety, morality, ethics, inclusiveness, cultural diversity, misuse, jurisprudence, and sovereignty. Due to the lack of global consensus and concerted efforts to have a universal regulatory framework, some countries/ groups of countries have put in efforts to build their own regulatory frameworks. One such example is European Union (EU) AI Act, which is the first-ever legal framework on AI¹¹ . This AI Act aims to foster AI ecosystem that is trustworthy, guarantees human safety, protects fundamental rights and keeps it human-centric. It also aims at AI assimilation as well as investment and innovation across the EU.¹² The EU AI Act came into force on 1 August 2024 with mandate to make it fully enforceable 2 years later i.e. from 2 August 2026 onwards.

Conclusion

The emerging AI ecosystem requires synchronization of global efforts for agnostic policy enunciation and technological initiatives by leveraging complementary skill sets and amalgamating knowledge bases. In the AI Paris Summit, Prime Minister Modi called for global cooperation in building trust and establishing fair AI regulations and mitigates risks. India’s success story in creating a low-cost digital public infrastructure for its 1.4 billion people is an assertion of its technological prowess which can be leveraged to use AI to empower its citizen. A vibrant AI governance is a prerequisite for compliance and trust in applying AI technologies. With AI's increasing proliferation into individual, organizational and governmental operations, global efforts need to be fast-tracked to curtail/ mitigate negative impacts of this transformative technology.

DISCLAIMER

The paper is author’s individual scholastic articulation and does not necessarily reflect the views of CENJOWS. The author certifies that the article is original in content, unpublished and it has not been submitted for publication/ web upload elsewhere and that the facts and figures quoted are duly referenced, as needed and are believed to be correct.