Emmanuel Macron warns that the new act on artificial intelligence may hinder innovation

Emmanuel Macron warned that landmark EU legislation to deal with the development of artificial intelligence could hamper European tech companies compared to competitors from the US, UK and China, setting the stage for a new battle over regulations ;not technology.

On Monday, the French president addressed the public in Toulouse and "attacked" the new act on artificial intelligence, which was adopted last Friday: "We can decide on regulation much faster and much more powerfully than our main competitors. With this, we will regulate things that we will no longer... produced or invented. This is never a good idea."

Macron said he was worried the new law would mean the EU would impose the world's toughest regime on so-called basic models. The technology behind generative AI models such as OpenAI's ChatGPT. There's probably no need to waste words on what these models can do, right?

As an example of a "French genius" who was initially a leader in the design of artificial intelligence models, he cited the example of the company Mistral. An eight-month-old start-up company based in Paris, which was valued at 2 billion euros in an exceptional round of financing.

Macron added: “If I look at France, we are probably the first country in the field of artificial intelligence in continental Europe. We are on the heels of the British. They won't have this basic model regulation. Above all, we are all very far awayč for the Chinese and the Americans.”

Macron's remarks may herald a new battle over the final terms of the artificial intelligence act, which member states must ratify in the coming weeks. France, along with Germany and Italy, is in initial discussions about efforts to amend or prevent the adoption of the act.

"The stakes are high and the French will try to prevent it.,” said a person familiar with the matter. Nevertheless, these unnamed sources believe that the text will eventually be adopted despite the opposition.

French negotiators tried to soften the proposed rules in marathon talks last week, but in the end the bloc moved closer to a strict regulatory regime that introduces new transparency requirements for powerful artificial intelligence models and strict limits on the use of facial recognition technology.

The new rules, which are likely to come into force in early 2025, also introduce a ban on the use of artificial intelligence for "social scoring", the use of metrics to classify people based on their behavior or personal characteristics. Companies that do not comply with the new legislation are threatened with fines of up to 7 percent of their turnover.

"A last-minute attempt to regulate the models turned everything upside down,” she said Cecilia Bonefeld-Dahl, the general director of the organization DigitalEurope, which represents the technology sector of Europe.

"The new requirements – in addition to other sweeping new laws such as the Data Act – will require significant resources from companies to comply with. Funds they will spend on lawyers instead of hiring data engineers and similar profiles."