Emmanuel Macron has hit back at US criticism of Europe’s efforts to regulate AI, vowing to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s presidency of the G7.
Speaking at the AI Impact Summit in Delhi, the French president called for tougher protections amid global outrage over Elon Musk’s GROC chatbot being used to create sexual images of tens of thousands of children and concerns about the concentration of AI power in a few companies.
His comments were echoed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, who told delegates – including several US tech billionaires – that “no child should be a test subject for unregulated AI”.
“The future of AI cannot be decided by a few countries or left to the will of a few billionaires,” Guterres said. “AI should belong to everyone”.
Bill Gates was scheduled to speak, but pulled out at the last minute amid renewed scrutiny of his past relationship with convicted child sex offender Jeffrey Epstein.
On Wednesday, the White House’s senior AI adviser, Sriram Krishnan, renewed the Trump administration’s criticism of AI regulation, consolidating the EU’s AI law.
He told delegates that he would continue to “come out” against legislation that is “not favorable to an entrepreneur who wants to build innovative technology.”
But Macron told the intergovernmental summit: “Contrary to what some misinformed friends are saying, Europe is not blindly focused on regulation. Europe is a place for innovation and investment, but it is a safe place, and safe places win in the long run.”
Research published this month by UNICEF and Interpol in 11 countries found that at least 1.2 million children reported having their images turned into sexually suggestive deepfakes. In some countries, one in 25 children – the equivalent of one child in every classroom – is affected.
“There is no reason for our children to be exposed online to something that is legally prohibited in the real world,” Macron said. “Our platforms, governments and regulators must work together to make the internet and social media a safer place. That’s why, in France, we’ve started the process of banning social networks for children under 15.”
Among the tech executives in attendance was Sam Altman, chief executive of OpenAI, which is facing a legal challenge from the family of suicidal 16-year-old Adam Raine, who discussed suicide with ChatGPIT.
Dario Amodei, Anthropic’s co-chief executive, said he was “concerned about the autonomous behavior of AI models, their potential for abuse by individuals and governments, and their potential for financial dislocation”.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has said that “AI is child safe and family-guided is imperative”, comparing the emergence of AI to the invention of fire and calling it “a profound transformation in human history”.
India wants to become the world’s third AI power after the US and China, with Google this week announcing a $15bn investment in datacentres and subsea cables linking India to the US and other countries.
“There should be consistent authenticity levels for content in the digital world … people need to know what is authentic and what is generated by AI,” Modi said.
The interventions come amid growing public concern about the societal risks of AI, as the most advanced models are controlled by about four US companies and some Chinese rivals.
Modi set out an alternative vision, promoting India’s population of 1.4 billion as a huge growth market for technology companies.
He said: “We must prevent an AI monopoly. Many countries consider AI a strategic asset, so it is developed in secret and its availability is carefully managed.
“However, our country India has a different point of view. We believe that technology like I can only truly benefit the world when it is shared and open source code is made available.”
His comments appeared to refer to the US, where popular AI models are not open source and cannot be used or adapted without permission. In contrast, China’s leading systems such as DeepSeek and Quen are widely open source.
