Artificial intelligence: XL budget, training, public awareness… the French battle plan revealed
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Don’t miss the train already in motion. In a thick report submitted this Wednesday to the President of the Republic, a committee of experts generative artificial intelligence (AGI) called for an ambitious national strategy in order to stay in intense international competition. With a telling figure: France must invest 5 billion euros per year over five years if it wants to be on par with the United States and China. Fueled by 600 hearings, their work resulted in 25 recommendations to guide the strategy and accelerate the development of generative AI in France, embodied in the eyes of the general public by the ChatGPT phenomenon.
Launched in September by former Prime Minister Élisabeth Borne, this committee brought together around fifteen specialists in issues linked to AGI such as pure technology but also intellectual property law or its economic impacts. “It is a realistic financial effort, this sum representing 0.3% of public expenditure”, argued the economist Philippe Aghion, co-president of the “Generative Artificial Intelligence Committee”, following a meeting at the Élysée. “Despite laudable efforts, France currently invests three times less in AI than the United States as a proportion of GDP,” he recalled.
Avoid stalling
“The risk is to find ourselves without companies specializing in AI and to see our companies (…) lose competitiveness”, while the government’s objective is to make France a major player in the sector . This should help drive growth upwards: the report estimates that it could double thanks to AI in the coming years.
“We have a chance to take a place in this race because the United States only has 1 to 2 years of hindsight on these technologies,” says an Elysian advisor. Generative AI could be a “growth lever at the same economic level as industry GDP”.
France is putting in the balance a robust higher education system on AI, carbon-free energy, nuclear power, which could promote the establishment of data centers essential to the exploitation of AI models. And a comparative advantage inherited from centralization: billions of public data useful for training and perfecting algorithms.
It will also be necessary to do educational work to break the image of AI destroying jobs. “Companies that adopt AI increase employment more than similar companies that have not adopted it,” insisted Philippe Aghion, recognizing however that there are disparities between professions.
Beyond the economic issue, the report insists on the need to raise awareness among the general public and provide training “without delay, massively and continuously” in AI professions. He suggests, for example, developing training in higher education or encouraging teachers to use it. “Without this, our other recommendations will not be able to give their full effect,” noted Anne Bouverot, president of the board of directors of the École normale supérieure (ENS), also at the head of the committee.
Among these 15 personalities, we found world references such as Yann LeCun, director of the Meta artificial intelligence laboratory, and Joëlle Barral, scientific director at Google. But also representatives of the vibrant French ecosystem like Arthur Mensch, co-founder of the start-up Mistral AI, French and European champion of AI, and Cédric O, former Secretary of State for Digital and consultant for Mistral AI.
Among the other major areas explored: ensuring the cultural influence of the country by training models on French data, finding a balance between innovation and protection of personal data, or even developing models that consume less energy. The experts also want to make France and Europe “a major center of computing power” by facilitating the installation of private computing centers, essential for the proper functioning of AI. “A start is essential,” they warned, highlighting Europe’s dependence on the rest of the world.
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