Dakar, January 14 (APS) – Artificial Intelligence is a political and civic issue that requires close international dialogue around planetary leaders, researchers, businesses and civil society, believes the Ambassador of France to Senegal , Christine Fages, emphasizing the need to enable AI to ”realize its initial promise of progress and emancipation within a framework of common trust”.
In a column published as a prelude to the Summit for Action on AI, the diplomat notes that ”Artificial Intelligence (AI) is more than an industrial and technological revolution”.
”It carries the potential for a profound paradigm shift in our societies, in our relationships with knowledge, work, information, culture and even language. In this sense, AI is not a neutral technology, but a political and civic issue which requires close international dialogue around planetary leaders, researchers, businesses and civil society,” maintains Ms. Farges .
In her column entitled ”Artificial Intelligence: towards the Summit for action” and a copy of which was sent to the APS, she believes that ”the issue is fundamental”, is to ”allow AI to realize its initial promise of progress and emancipation within a framework of common trust making it possible to contain the risks specific to the development of technologies.
France has accepted the responsibility of deepening the dynamic initiated by the United Kingdom and South Korea by hosting the Summit for Action on AI on February 10 and 11, 2025. The meeting will bring together in Paris nearly a hundred heads of state and government and a thousand civil society actors from around a hundred countries.
»guarantee access to AI for as many people as possible »
In view of the Summit and its aftermath, the Ambassador points out that ”France’s action focuses primarily on three concrete objectives”.
It is firstly a matter of ”guaranteeing access to AI to as many people as possible, so that everyone around the world can benefit from it and develop new ideas to realize its full potential.
”With the aim of reducing the growing digital divide and stemming the excessive concentration of the AI market, the Summit will be an opportunity to launch a major initiative for AI in the service of the general interest in order to to encourage the development and sharing of computing power, structured data sets, open tools and training for the talents of tomorrow. This project will be carried out by both public and private actors,” announced Christine Fages.
We must then, according to the diplomat, ”imperatively think jointly about the two major transitions of our time: the environment and technology”.
Indeed, believes Christine Fages, ”if AI must provide all its support to fight against global warming and preserve ecosystems, it is now on an untenable trajectory in terms of energy”.
According to her, ”the latest forecasts suggest energy needs for the AI sector ten times higher, from 2026, than those of 2023”, a perspective which ”is not sustainable”.
To address this issue, “an international and multi-stakeholder coalition in favor of sustainable AI” will be launched at the Paris Summit, announced the Ambassador.
Its objective is ”to deepen research on the environmental cost of AI, to evaluate models through this prism, to define new standards and to increase green investments at all levels of the value chain” ‘.
Finally, believes Christine Fages, we must “collectively build an effective and inclusive AI governance system which is not limited to questions of ethics and security”.
She cited ”primordial” issues such as the protection of fundamental freedoms, intellectual property, the fight against market concentration, access to data.
Senegal’s leadership
Regarding global AI governance, the diplomat recalled that only seven countries in the world are currently involved in the main international initiatives on AI, and 119 are entirely absent.
Furthermore, she argues, private actors and civil society must also be included in order to jointly define a common architecture for international AI governance.
According to Christine Fages, more than 700 partners, public and private, researchers and NGOs from five continents have been contributing for several months to the preparation of the Paris Summit.
Senegal, she affirms, ”a key player in the organization of the Summit for Action on AI”, is ”one of the 15 members of its steering committee, reflecting the dynamic singular which characterizes the Senegalese AI ecosystem and Senegal’s leadership on the international scene in this field.
She points out that ”Senegal is also the only country on the African continent to have joined and participated in the Global Artificial Intelligence Partnership”.
In Paris, no subject will be avoided, promises the diplomat: from the future of work to frugal AI, from the security of models to innovation ecosystems, from the necessary linguistic (and therefore cultural) diversity to the protection of personal data .
”Each of us is concerned and can support the dynamic that leads to the Summit for Action on AI, so that together we build, within a framework of trust, AI at the service of all, for a prosperous, more open and more inclusive world,” she concludes.
OID/AB
