The Banking Executive Magazine - January 2025

ISSUE 193 JANUARY 2025 the BANKING EXECUTIVE 41 FinTech and AI Chornicle there's also the opposite risk, if Eu- rope gives itself too many rules," Macron told regional French news- papers. "We should not be afraid of innova- tion," he said. Trump's early moves on AI under- scored how far the strategies to regu- late AI in the United States, China and EU have diverged. European lawmakers last year ap- proved the bloc's AI Act, the world's first comprehensive set of rules gov- erning the technology. Tech giants and some capitals are pushing for it to be enforced leniently. Meanwhile, China's DeepSeek chal- lenged the United States' AI leader- ship last month by freely distributing a human-like reasoning system, gal- vanizing geopolitical and industry ri- vals to race faster still. RISKS Not everyone in Paris agreed with taking a lighter-touch approach. In terms of regulation, "it's sort of a night and day difference, between the U.S. and the EU right now," said Brian Chen, policy director at Data & Society, a U.S-based nonprofit which researches the social implica- tions of AI. "What I worry about is that... there will be pressures from the U.S. and elsewhere to weaken the EU's AI Act and weaken those existing protec- tions," he said. Yoshua Bengio, considered one of the "Godfathers of AI," said at an event on the sidelines on Sunday that frontier AI already had shown a ca- pacity for deception and self-preser- vation, in a harbinger of future risks. "I'm speaking my mind to anyone who wants to hear it," said Bengio. "I'm not going to stop." Meanwhile, labour leaders expressed concerns on the impact of AI on workers. The claim that AI will bring about new jobs is no simple fix for profes- sions' displacement, said Gilbert F. Houngbo, director-general of the In- ternational Labour Organization. "There is a risk of those jobs being much less paid and sometimes with much less protection," he said. UNI Global Union General Secretary Christy Hoffman said there would be a pledge asking employers coming out of the summit that highlights so- cial dialogue and bargaining as AI proliferates. Top political leaders including U.S. Vice President JD Vance and China's Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing will at- tend the summit. Macron is due to meet with Zhang and Vance, the French president's office said. Top executives such as Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai and OpenAI's Altman are slated to give talks as well. Delegations are also expected to talk about managing AI's massive energy needs as the planet gets hotter, and AI for the developing world. A non- binding statement is being discussed.