The election of Donald Trump and the upheavals linked to generative artificial intelligence, from its environmental consequences to the impact on artistic creation, are shaping up to be the two major themes at the Web Summit, a major European tech gathering which held this week in Lisbon.
“A new Trump era”, “Understanding the results of the American elections”… Several sessions will try to decipher what this second term of the Republican candidate can mean for the global technology industry.
Contrary to the caution displayed during his first victory in 2016, the big bosses of the sector, from Jeff Bezos of Amazon to Mark Zuckerberg of Meta, were quick to congratulate the billionaire, whose campaign was strongly supported by tech mogul Elon Musk.
The 47th President of the United States could notably revise or cancel a controversial executive order from Joe Biden, which sets voluntary standards for AI security, with an emphasis on protecting privacy and combating bias .
And, to the delight of American titans of the sector, like OpenAI – at the origin of ChatGPT – or Microsoft, who fear that the rules will stifle innovation.
The growth of this technology, capable of producing all kinds of content on simple request in everyday language and which hit the general public two years ago, will thus be at the heart of “Davos des geeks”.
– “Crossroads” –
“This year, the Web Summit has become one of the largest gatherings on artificial intelligence,” said Paddy Cosgrave, co-founder of the event, on Monday during the opening night.
More than 70,000 participants, including 3,000 start-ups and 1,000 investors, are expected to discuss the subject.
“We are at a crossroads,” summarized on stage astrophysicist Max Tegmark, president of the Future of Life Institute association which regularly warns of the possible abuses of AI.
“Either we take the wrong route, we build artificial general intelligence (that is to say comparable or even superior to humans, editor’s note), lose control and there is a good chance that we will all be dead in ten years” , he summarized. “Either we take the right path and I think it can exceed our wildest hopes.”
“There will be turbulence,” agreed Thomas Wolf of the start-up Hugging Face, a platform for sharing artificial intelligence models with open access.
Whether dystopian or enchanting, one certainty: the future will not happen without AI.
Companies and big names in the sector will come to discuss how they intend to take advantage of it.
Cristiano Amon, boss of Qualcomm, an American specialist in mobile technologies and processors for smartphones, as well as Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, will for example present their progress in this area.
Gabriele Mazzini, one of the authors of the European regulation on artificial intelligence, which came into force in August but most of the measures will only apply in 2026, will come to discuss the challenge of finding a balance between innovation and risk limitation.
The screenwriter and director of the British series “Peaky Blinders”, Steven Knight, will discuss the impact of artificial intelligence on the world of cinema and series, while the British singer Imogen Heap will explain how AI can be used as a tool for musical creation.
The climatic consequences of the rise of this very energy-intensive technology will also be examined during conferences with evocative titles, such as “Protection or catastrophe? AI and the environment” or “The insatiable energy appetite of AI”.
Among the other headliners, the singer and fashion designer Pharrell Williams pleaded Monday evening for diversity in business and the president of the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba, Kuo Zhang, is also expected in Lisbon.
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