The Banking Executive Magazine - January 2025

the BANKING EXECUTIVE 44 ISSUE 193 JANUARY 2025 FinTech and AI Chornicle World leaders and technology exec- utives convened in Paris to discuss how to safely embrace artificial intel- ligence at a time of mounting resist- ance to red tape that businesses say stifles innovation. Eagerness to rein in AI has waned since previous summits in Britain and South Korea that focused world powers' attention on the technol- ogy's risks after ChatGPT's viral launch in 2022. As U.S. President Donald Trump tears up his predecessor's AI guardrails to promote U.S. competi- tiveness, pressure has built on the Eu- ropean Union to pursue a lighter-touch approach to AI to help keep European firms in the tech race. "If we want growth, jobs and progress, we must allow innovators to innovate, builders to build and de- velopers to develop," OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said in an op-ed in Le Monde newspaper ahead of the sum- mit. Some EU leaders including the sum- mit's host, French President Em- manuel Macron, also hope flexibility will be applied to the bloc's new AI Act to help homegrown startups. "There's a risk some decide to have no rules and that's dangerous. But PARIS AI SUMMIT DRAWS WORLD LEADERS AND CEOS EAGER FOR LIGHTER REGULATION