Creation must remain ‘fundamentally human', says expert ahead of Paris AI summit
Ahead of the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris next week, the French Culture Ministry is holding a public event this weekend, hoping to spark interest in AI, as the country aims to keep up with the competition in the sector from the United States and China.
France is hoping the summit, to be attended by world leaders as well as tech experts, will reinforce its leading European position, in a battle that is for now largely being played out between the US and China.
The country also hopes to stoke public interest in real-world uses of artificial intelligence (AI). The French Cultural Ministry has put together a weekend programme of events in Paris, ahead of the summit, for the public to learn about the use of AI in various arenas such as art, cinema, history and music.
For law professor Alexandra Bensamoun, it's vital for France to keep abreast of the latest developments in AI, regardless of the sector. 'I believe that we must get on the AI train, we must not stand on the platform and watch it go by," she said.
Bensamoun is among the guest speakers at a discussion being held at the National Library of France, focusing on AI's place in the cultural domain. She is part of a special task force informing the government on a legal framework for AI, at both a French and a European level.
Aside from legal questions, the use of AI raises philosophical and ethical debate.
Read more on RFI EnglishRead also:Europe's tech sector sees silver lining in DeepSeek's AI shake upTech giants grilled on their compliance with EU's new Digital Markets ActMacron promises to boost investment in French artificial intelligence
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Hamilton Spectator
25 minutes ago
- Hamilton Spectator
US military parade has global counterparts in democracies, monarchies and totalitarian regimes
The military parade to mark the Army's 250th anniversary and its convergence with President Donald Trump's 79th birthday are combining to create a peacetime outlier in U.S. history. Yet it still reflects global traditions that serve a range of political and cultural purposes. Variations on the theme have surfaced among longtime NATO allies in Europe, one-party and authoritarian states and history's darkest regimes. France: Bastille Day and Trump's idée inspirée The oldest democratic ally of the U.S. holds a military parade each July 14 to commemorate one of the seminal moments of the French Revolution. It inspired — or at least stoked — Trump's idea for a Washington version. On July 14, 1789, French insurgents stormed the Bastille, which housed prisoners of Louis XVI's government. Revolutionaries commenced a Fête de la Fédération as a day of national unity and pride the following year, even with the First French Republic still more than two years from being established. The Bastille Day parade has rolled annually since 1880. Now, it proceeds down an iconic Parisian route, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It passes the Arc de Triomphe — a memorial with tributes to the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and World War I — and eventually in front of the French president, government ministers and invited foreign guests. Trump attended in 2017 , early in his first presidency, as U.S. troops marched as guests . The spectacle left him openly envious. 'It was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen,' Trump told French President Emanuel Macron. 'It was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. We're going to have to try and top it.' The British set modern ceremonial standards In the United Kingdom, King Charles III serves as ceremonial (though not practical) head of U.K. armed forces. Unlike in France and the U.S., where elected presidents wear civilian dress even at military events, Charles dons elaborate dress uniforms — medals, sash, sword, sometimes even a bearskin hat and chin strap. He does it most famously at Trooping the Colour , a parade and troop inspection to mark the British monarch's official birthday , regardless of their actual birthdate. (The U.S. Army has said it has no specific plans to recognize Trump's birthday on Saturday.) In 2023, Charles' first full year as king, he rode on horseback to inspect 1,400 representatives of the most prestigious U.K. regiments. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II , used a carriage over the last three decades of her 70-year reign. The British trace Trooping the Colour back to King Charles II, who reigned from 1660-1685. It became an annual event under King George III, described in the American colonists' Declaration of Independence as a figure of 'absolute Despotism (and) Tyranny.' Authoritarians flaunt military assets Grandiose military pomp is common under modern authoritarians, especially those who have seized power via coups. It sometimes serves as a show of force meant to ward off would-be challengers — and to seek legitimacy and respect from other countries. Cuba's Fidel Castro, who wore military garb routinely, held parades to commemorate the revolution he led on Dec. 2, 1959. In 2017, then-President Raúl Castro refashioned the event into a Fidel tribute shortly after his brother's death . Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, known as 'Comandante Chávez,' presided over frequent parades until his 2013 death. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, has worn military dress at similar events . North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, who famously bonded with Trump in a 2018 summit, used a 2023 military parade to show off his daughter and potential successor, along with pieces of his isolated country's nuclear arsenal. The event in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square — named for Kim's grandfather — marked the North Korean Army's 75th birthday. Kim watched from a viewing stand as missiles other weaponry moved by and goose-stepping soldiers marched past him chanting, 'Defend with your life, Paektu Bloodline' — referring to the Kim family's biological ancestry. In China, Beijing's one-party government stages its National Day Parade every 10 years to project civic unity and military might. The most recent events, held in 2009 and 2019, involved trucks carrying nuclear missiles designed to evade U.S. defenses, as well as other weaponry. Legions of troops, along with those hard assets, streamed past President Xi Jinping and other leaders gathered in Tiananmen Square in 2019 as spectators waved Chinese flags and fighter jets flew above. Earlier this spring, Xi joined Russian President Vladimir Putin — another strongman leader Trump has occasionally praised — in Moscow's Red Square for the annual 'Victory Day' parade. The May 9 event commemorates the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II — a global conflict in which China and the Soviet Union, despite not being democracies, joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Axis Powers led by Germany and Japan. A birthday parade for Hitler Large civic-military displays were, of course, a feature in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy before and during World War II. Chilling footage of such events lives on as a reminder of the dangers of authoritarian extremism. Among those frequent occasions: a parade capping Germany's multiday observance of Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939. (Some far-right extremists in Europe still mark the anniversary of Hitler's birth.) The four-hour march through Berlin on April 20, 1939, included more than 40,000 personnel across the Army, Navy, Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Schutzstaffel (commonly known as the 'SS.') Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets. The Führer's invited guests numbered 20,000. On a street-level platform, Hitler was front and center. Alone. ___ Error! Sorry, there was an error processing your request. There was a problem with the recaptcha. Please try again. You may unsubscribe at any time. By signing up, you agree to our terms of use and privacy policy . This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google privacy policy and terms of service apply. Want more of the latest from us? Sign up for more at our newsletter page .
33 minutes ago
US military parade has global counterparts in democracies, monarchies and totalitarian regimes
The military parade to mark the Army's 250th anniversary and its convergence with President Donald Trump's 79th birthday are combining to create a peacetime outlier in U.S. history. Yet it still reflects global traditions that serve a range of political and cultural purposes. Variations on the theme have surfaced among longtime NATO allies in Europe, one-party and authoritarian states and history's darkest regimes. The oldest democratic ally of the U.S. holds a military parade each July 14 to commemorate one of the seminal moments of the French Revolution. It inspired — or at least stoked — Trump's idea for a Washington version. On July 14, 1789, French insurgents stormed the Bastille, which housed prisoners of Louis XVI's government. Revolutionaries commenced a Fête de la Fédération as a day of national unity and pride the following year, even with the First French Republic still more than two years from being established. The Bastille Day parade has rolled annually since 1880. Now, it proceeds down an iconic Parisian route, the Avenue des Champs-Élysées. It passes the Arc de Triomphe — a memorial with tributes to the French Revolution, Napoleonic Wars and World War I — and eventually in front of the French president, government ministers and invited foreign guests. Trump attended in 2017, early in his first presidency, as U.S. troops marched as guests. The spectacle left him openly envious. 'It was one of the greatest parades I've ever seen,' Trump told French President Emanuel Macron. 'It was military might, and I think a tremendous thing for France and for the spirit of France. We're going to have to try and top it.' In the United Kingdom, King Charles III serves as ceremonial (though not practical) head of U.K. armed forces. Unlike in France and the U.S., where elected presidents wear civilian dress even at military events, Charles dons elaborate dress uniforms — medals, sash, sword, sometimes even a bearskin hat and chin strap. He does it most famously at Trooping the Colour, a parade and troop inspection to mark the British monarch's official birthday, regardless of their actual birthdate. (The U.S. Army has said it has no specific plans to recognize Trump's birthday on Saturday.) In 2023, Charles' first full year as king, he rode on horseback to inspect 1,400 representatives of the most prestigious U.K. regiments. His mother, Queen Elizabeth II, used a carriage over the last three decades of her 70-year reign. The British trace Trooping the Colour back to King Charles II, who reigned from 1660-1685. It became an annual event under King George III, described in the American colonists' Declaration of Independence as a figure of 'absolute Despotism (and) Tyranny.' Grandiose military pomp is common under modern authoritarians, especially those who have seized power via coups. It sometimes serves as a show of force meant to ward off would-be challengers — and to seek legitimacy and respect from other countries. Cuba's Fidel Castro, who wore military garb routinely, held parades to commemorate the revolution he led on Dec. 2, 1959. In 2017, then-President Raúl Castro refashioned the event into a Fidel tribute shortly after his brother's death. Venezuela's Hugo Chávez, known as 'Comandante Chávez,' presided over frequent parades until his 2013 death. His successor, Nicolás Maduro, has worn military dress at similar events. North Korean dictator Kim Jung Un, who famously bonded with Trump in a 2018 summit, used a 2023 military parade to show off his daughter and potential successor, along with pieces of his isolated country's nuclear arsenal. The event in Pyongyang's Kim Il Sung Square — named for Kim's grandfather — marked the North Korean Army's 75th birthday. Kim watched from a viewing stand as missiles other weaponry moved by and goose-stepping soldiers marched past him chanting, 'Defend with your life, Paektu Bloodline' — referring to the Kim family's biological ancestry. In China, Beijing's one-party government stages its National Day Parade every 10 years to project civic unity and military might. The most recent events, held in 2009 and 2019, involved trucks carrying nuclear missiles designed to evade U.S. defenses, as well as other weaponry. Legions of troops, along with those hard assets, streamed past President Xi Jinping and other leaders gathered in Tiananmen Square in 2019 as spectators waved Chinese flags and fighter jets flew above. Earlier this spring, Xi joined Russian President Vladimir Putin — another strongman leader Trump has occasionally praised — in Moscow's Red Square for the annual 'Victory Day' parade. The May 9 event commemorates the Soviet Union's role in defeating Nazi Germany in World War II — a global conflict in which China and the Soviet Union, despite not being democracies, joined the Allied Powers in fighting the Axis Powers led by Germany and Japan. Large civic-military displays were, of course, a feature in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy before and during World War II. Chilling footage of such events lives on as a reminder of the dangers of authoritarian extremism. Among those frequent occasions: a parade capping Germany's multiday observance of Adolf Hitler's 50th birthday in 1939. (Some far-right extremists in Europe still mark the anniversary of Hitler's birth.) The four-hour march through Berlin on April 20, 1939, included more than 40,000 personnel across the Army, Navy, Luftwaffe (Air Force) and Schutzstaffel (commonly known as the 'SS.') Hundreds of thousands of spectators lined the streets. The Führer's invited guests numbered 20,000. On a street-level platform, Hitler was front and center. Alone.
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Europe's most valuable boss? How Christian Klein went from a 15-year-old intern to SAP's savior
May has been quite a month for Christian Klein, the baby-faced boss of Europe's most valuable company, SAP. He has just finished off his opening keynote at SAP's Sapphire event in Madrid, a summit attended by more than 6,000 people, when he finds time to squeeze in a putt-off on the main stage with Team Europe's 2014 Ryder Cup captain, Paul McGinley. A hole in one (on his second attempt) seems a fitting celebration. The false start nature of his foray on the putting green is reflective of his time at the helm of SAP, with his latest landmark the culmination of a tumultuous introduction, several false starts, and an overhaul of the company's organizational structure. Boasting a market value of $350 billion as of the end of May, SAP outpaced a struggling Novo Nordisk and a stunted luxury retail sector in March to confirm the unusual sighting of a German tech group atop Europe's public markets. Novo Nordisk reclaimed the mantle on the morning of June 13. The feat tops off a remarkable rise for the enterprise resource planning group, which is toasting record revenues and profits after a bet on cloud computing coincided with a global AI pivot that has seen demand for the company's business processes suite skyrocket. Fortune spoke with members of SAP's C-suite and leadership team to understand how Klein approached the mammoth task of turning a disparate SAP into Europe's most valuable company. Klein, just 45 years old, knows SAP better than most of the 120,000 people working at the company today. He first joined as a 15-year-old summer intern, ferrying clunky monitors around SAP's Walldorf headquarters with one eye on a professional football career. 'I can still remember, I tested them all, and one out of 10 didn't work,' Klein told Fortune in Madrid. 'In our area, SAP is a logical choice,' Klein says of the fateful application to the company he would run decades later. Indeed, former classmates of his continue to work at the company, though he's not as close to them as he was then. SAP offers software packages that help businesses deal with all sorts of admin, like HR, supply-chain management, and procurement, also known as enterprise resource planning (ERP). Klein throws his head back with laughter as this reporter suggests it's not the most exciting subject matter for the layperson to try to care about. His time at the helm of the company, though, has betrayed the dull, bureaucratic principles on which SAP has made its billions. Following the departure of its previous boss, ServiceNow's American CEO, Bill McDermott, the software as a service (SaaS) provider faced criticism that it was a bloated amalgam of various acquisitions with no obvious plans to align them. McDermott and SAP got it in the neck on more than one occasion from executives at one of its main competitors, Oracle. The late former Oracle co-CEO, Mark Hurd, was critical of the company's acquisition strategy in 2019 after SAP's $8 billion move for experience management platform Qualtrics. 'We're not buying somebody to just buy them. We're buying companies that fit into our portfolio,' Hurd said at the time. It was under this cloud of uncertainty that Klein took on the role of co-CEO alongside Jennifer Morgan in 2019. In April 2020, Klein assumed the mantle of CEO alone, a month into global lockdowns, after Morgan abruptly stepped down. Sebastian Steinhaeuser, SAP's chief operating officer, first worked with Klein in 2020 as a consultant at Boston Consulting Group, ironing out a presidency-style plan for Klein's first 100 days in charge. Something about that time with Klein persuaded Steinhaeuser to jump on board, even if it raised eyebrows among his confidants. 'I think the general perception when I joined SAP, many friends and colleagues looked at me like, 'What are you doing? Like, are you sure?'' said Steinhaeuser. 'I think there was a time where instead of executing, [SAP] just defined a new strategy every two years. Every year, customers would sit here at Sapphire, we talked about the year before, if we had delivered it or not delivered it, and just pulled a new rabbit out of the hat.' Within a few months of taking sole charge of the company, Klein had to abandon a medium-term profitability forecast as the worst economic effects of the coronavirus kicked in. 'I think the stock got a hit of 20% or 25%, and everybody thought, 'It's crazy. Why would you do that?'' recalls Jan Gilg, SAP's chief revenue officer, of reactions to the guidance call. 'But then, in retrospect, you see that it was the only option he had.' Some of Klein's other big calls have been met with frustration from within his own ranks. SAP announced plans for a 10,000-strong headcount reduction in January last year. The company faced €3.1 billion in 'restructuring expenses' as a result of the deal, and retrained thousands of workers to adjust to its AI-first approach. An internal company survey released the following September, reported by Bloomberg, revealed more than half of SAP's employees were ready to join a competitor. Klein's proponents would argue his experience demonstrates what a CEO can achieve with the proper mandate for revolution. In that regard, it's not hyperbolic to compare Klein to Satya Nadella, the Microsoft CEO who increased the value of the company 10-fold in his first decade in charge by pivoting the firm first from PCs to cloud computing, then to the AI era. Just ask Muhammad Alam, a man who has worked with both CEOs, about the comparison. Alam heads up SAP's product and engineering board and is a member of the company's executive board. A 17-year Microsoft veteran, Alam left a cushy role as corporate vice president at the company's Dynamics 365 ERP (enterprise resource planning) division to join a then-uncertain SAP project. One of the reasons Alam took the leap of faith was Klein. 'I felt three years ago when I joined—and having seen Satya sort of transform Microsoft beginning in 2014—I felt the same level of energy, vision, and commitment from Christian and the leadership team here,' Alam said of the parallels between Klein and Nadella. 'I felt like he had both the ability to make the hard decisions and the energy and the commitment to see them through; because some of them aren't going to be popular with employees and others, if you will, but they're needed for the transformation.' Unlike Nadella's journey of being parachuted into Microsoft, it must have been a challenge for Klein to diagnose the strategy shift required at a company he had known intimately since his teens. Examples of long-running CEOs at Fortune 500 companies are rare. Burnout, a lack of experience, or boardroom preference for an outsider mean the onetime graduate rarely progresses to the boardroom. BMW's Oliver Zipse and General Motors' Mary Barra are two rare examples of CEOs who have worked at the same company for their entire careers. When that happens, Klein, unsurprisingly, sees it as an advantage. 'In the early days of becoming a CEO, it was of extreme value to understand who my stakeholders are. Because the transformation is not only about, 'Oh, we are now developing all software in the cloud,' it's a transformation for everyone. Everything is changing. And that's why I would say, in this situation, it was definitely a big plus,' Klein says on the advantages of being a lifer at SAP. 'I had to make sure that I communicated extremely often. All hands, investor meetings, customer meetings, because you have to explain more than once why this change is needed.' The rewards have been lucrative. In February, Klein secured a record $19.8 million payday for his efforts turning around SAP in 2024, a 165% increase on the year before. SAP stock surged to make it Europe's most valuable company weeks later. After an aggressive five-year overhaul, the outside observer would be pretty confident in declaring Klein had afforded himself the space to relax. Instead, though, Klein appears emboldened to go further, and look to the U.S.'s dominant tech sector. 'I would say I'm a bit more demanding than at the beginning, where there was sheer uncertainty. And I just had to make sure, as a leader, that everyone believes that the strategy is the right one. Now everyone believes in the strategy. Now it's about, 'How can we raise the bar and compete with the biggest tech companies in the world?'' This story was originally featured on Sign in to access your portfolio
