Vance Urges Light AI Hand --- U.S. is at odds with dozens of countries pushing for common regulatory principles

PARIS -- The Trump administration wants the U.S. to dominate the artificial-intelligence revolution, and is warning American allies to get on board with its light-touch approach to tech regulation or risk being left out.

The U.S. is winning the race to build the best AI-training chips and the most advanced AI algorithms, and "intends to keep it that way," Vice President JD Vance told world leaders -- including French President Emmanuel Macron and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi -- gathered Tuesday for an AI summit in Paris.

Other leaders at the summit pushed for a common set of principles that they say will lead to safe AI systems that are energy efficient and available to the developing world.

 Dozens of governments attending the summit signed a joint declaration that the U.S. and U.K. declined to endorse, a major setback to the summit's ambition to build an international consensus.

"We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off," Vance warned, before citing European regulations that he said pose an unfair burden on American companies. "We need our European friends in particular to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation."

The European Union's executive arm has used new digital competition and content-moderation laws to target U.S. tech companies including Meta Platforms, Elon Musk's X and Apple for alleged violations that could lead to billions of dollars in fines.

Vance said on Tuesday that the U.S. can't and won't accept foreign governments' "tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies."

While Vance promoted U.S. AI supremacy, Macron pushed for more AI investment in France and Europe. France, with abundant nuclear power, announced new AI computing facilities that it says could put the country on par with the U.S., with its Stargate plans to build massive AI data centers.

The EU on Tuesday announced its own investment program of 20 billion euros, equivalent to $20.61 billion, to build large AI data centers. That comes on top of European corporate pledges to invest billions more in European AI.

Macron and other European officials have said they aim to cut red tape for AI projects, but they have also supported a new EU law requiring AI developers to test the most cutting-edge models for an array of risks.

"Yes, AI needs competition. But it also needs collaboration. And it also needs to be safe," said Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, in a speech following Vance's. India's Modi also called for broad AI-governance efforts that include the rest of the world.

Vance, on his first foreign trip as vice president, is tackling points of tension with European leaders that also include trade policy, military spending and events in Ukraine. He will go to Munich to attend a security conference starting on Friday.

The Paris summit's declaration, released on Tuesday, called for "respect of international laws including humanitarian law and human-rights law and the protection of human rights, gender equality, linguistic diversity, protection of consumers and of intellectual property rights."

Those weren't themes that Vance highlighted. He spoke about ridding U.S. AI systems of ideological bias that he said was to blame for controversies, for instance when the visual feature in Google's Gemini chatbot produced historically inaccurate images and, in some cases, refused to generate depictions of white people.

"The Trump administration will ensure that AI systems developed in America are free from ideological bias and never restrict our citizens' right to free speech," Vance said.

Vance also took veiled shots at AI rival China, suggesting that "authoritarian regimes" use stolen AI tools to "capture foreign data and create propaganda." He said the U.S. would block those efforts. He also urged allies not to buy what he described as cheap technology from such countries.

Some U.S. tech executives have also argued that winning an AI race against China requires lighter regulation in the U.S. and Europe. On Tuesday, OpenAI said the outcome will determine whether the technology ends up benefiting democracies or autocracies.

"The global rails of AI will be built by one of these two countries," Chris Lehane, vice president of global affairs at OpenAI, said at an event in Paris on Tuesday, speaking of the U.S. and China. "The stakes are very high." ” [1]

1. World News: Vance Urges Light AI Hand --- U.S. is at odds with dozens of countries pushing for common regulatory principles. Schechner, Sam; Meichtry, Stacy.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y.. 12 Feb 2025: A7.