US, UK not party to Paris AI declaration; India, China among signatories

The US and the UK have refused to sign the declaration seeking safe and open AI technology, adopted at the AI Action Summit in Paris on Tuesday. 

US Vice President JD Vance also warned Europe not to adopt "overly precautionary" AI, as the two countries shied away from signing the declaration signed by about 60 countries, including India and France, which co-chaired the Summit, and Germany and China.  

"The Trump administration will ensure that the most powerful AI systems are built in the US, with American-designed and manufactured chips," Vance said Tuesday at the Summit, thronged by technocrats, politicians, diplomats, and bureaucrats from around the world. 

"America wants to partner with all of you... but to create that kind of trust, we need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it," Vance said. 

The summit declaration calls for "ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy, taking into account international frameworks for all." 

Even though the commitments are non-binding, the US' apprehension in approbating the declaration largely stems from China's rapidly emerging supremacy in the technology, largely lorded over by the US tech firms till recently.  

According to Ars Technica, a person close to the British government suggested the wording of the declaration was "too restrictive," while the US stuck to the latest Donald Trump administration's "America First" credo in thwarting the proposal. 

The US' supremacy in AI received a setback recently with the launch of a Chinese open-source cheaper version chatbot Deepseek. 

The near-upending has had a short-term consequence, with the EU now making its bid for a stake in the field, with the announcement of a 200 billion euros investment in AI infrastructure made at the Summit. 

"We are doing this through our own European approach – based on openness, cooperation and excellent talent. But our approach still needs to be supercharged," European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said, announcing the investment. 

"This is why, together with our member states and with our partners, we will mobilise unprecedented capital through InvestAI for European AI gigafactories," she added.

On Tuesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi in his inaugural speech at the Summit spoke about AI's power in transforming people's lives en masse with interventions in health, agriculture, and education.

He also, however, cautioned people against the AI biases that crop in with overwhelmingness of a type of training data.

"We must build quality data sets, free from biases. We must democratise technology and create people-centric applications. We must address concerns related to cyber security, disinformation, and deep fakes. And, we must also ensure that technology is rooted in local ecosystems for it to be effective and useful," he said. 

Modi during his closing address also announced that India would host the next AI Summit. 

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