Situationship, the modern success of undefined relationships
The conversation has been going on for eight months. They
While the World Summit on Artificial Intelligence (AI) was kicking off at the Grand Palais, the OECD, and various Parisian universities—with participants including, among others, French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission—a group of activists, journalists, academics, and critical thinkers on AI chose a different stage altogether: the Théâtre de la Concorde, made available by Mayor Anne Hidalgo. This gesture, on Hidalgo’s part, deserves praise as a genuine example of democracy at a time when major tech lobbies seem to dominate the political agenda on both sides of the Atlantic.
On the official side, Macron appeared at the Grand Palais with an affable tone, quite unlike his usual presidential style.
In a quasi-managerial manner, he announced that he had secured 109 billion euros in investments—both public and private (Donald Trump, for his part, claims to have gathered 500 billion)—explaining that France intends to use them as leverage to build an international alliance on AI, uniting Europe and India in order to carry weight on the global stage.
Beneath this rhetorical hyperbole lies a clearly assumed intention: Macron wants to “accelerate” decision-making processes by pushing Europe to ease the regulations and constraints that hold it back in competing with the United States. For him, one of France and Europe’s major strengths lies in energy availability. Ecology, however, seems almost entirely limited in his mind to the issue of carbon emissions; uranium, by contrast, is presented as a “green” and “sustainable” energy source (but what does that really mean?).
The French President makes no mention of the complex geostrategic and environmental challenges related to extracting and purchasing this resource. In his speech, the United States and China are placed on equal footing, while India emerges as a privileged and essential interlocutor: a gesture of partnership aimed at the BRICS and the Global South, which India now represents on the international stage.
A clear message, seemingly issued from a position of strength, is directed toward Europe, urged to decide whether or not to follow Paris’s agenda.
Macron’s speechhas been expansive yet offering little analysis and strongly advocating an ultracapitalist view of the future, ready to sacrifice the human principles that underpin European regulations.
According to some observers, the French struggle to hide their belief that they remain, deep down, the “light of the world.” Yet in this initial address, Macron mostly spoke in English—uncommon in French diplomacy—likely signaling openness, aimed at securing the additional 400 billion needed to compete with the United States and China.
For now, no. Von der Leyen replied that Europe would invest 200 billion, of which 50 billion are public funds and the rest would come from industry, but with strong (some say paralyzing) legal constraints under the AI Act—something Macron had hoped to ease.
Meanwhile, the final summit declaration, which imposes minimal ethical and legal conditions expressed through a host of buzzwords but few concrete actions, was not signed by the United States or the United Kingdom, who wish to keep their hands even freer. China, on the other hand, decided to “join in.”
This leaves Europe at a stalemate vis-à-vis the United States and China. It is difficult, at this stage, to assess the historic scope of Macron’s gamble—thus far unsuccessful—or predict its future development.
But ultimately, as Tolstoy wrote in his famous postscript to War and Peace, so-called great men and their decisions are not as pivotal as one might think in the course of history.
In the early afternoon, the Concorde “counter-summit” took shape in front of some seven hundred people, mostly university students and guys above sixty years old.
In addition to the mostly humanities students, there were teachers or former teachers, journalists or former journalists, humanists, technologists, and a few curious delegates from the official summit.
From the outset, the event was marked by the intrusion of around twenty radical activists from the group “Révolution anti-tech contre l’IA,” who took over the stage with megaphones, protesting the indiscriminate use of artificial intelligence, accusing the authorities in particular of seeking to increase surveillance since last summer’s Olympic Games (a point on which Parisians who did not leave the city seem to agree).
Tensions reached a peak in a brief scuffle between two septuagenarians, who were only just separated by a camarade slightly younger than them.
After half an hour of heated exchanges, the activists finally left the stage peacefully, allowing the counter-summit to begin. Attention then turned primarily to Éric Sadin, a French philosopher and essayist known for works denouncing the gradual “algorithmization” of human existence.
According to Sadin, one of the two organizers of the Concorde event, the main issue with AI is not merely technological or about its possible consequences,
but rather the power structure underlying it: speaking of “responsible AI” without rethinking its economic and social foundations ends up reproducing the very hierarchies and inequalities that the digital revolution supposedly aimed to overcome—and instead exacerbated. The advance of AI, Sadin warned, could become a tool of control if we do not fundamentally reconsider the logic of production and profit in the context of human life’s deeper meaning.
The round tables following Sadin’s presentation brought together researchers such as Éric Barbier (the other organizer), Fabien Lebrun, and Corentin de Montmarin, authors of studies examining the relationship between the apparent immateriality of digital technology and its all-too-real—and sometimes devastating—impact on the planet.
A key theme was the raw materials needed to power the massive servers used for AI, as well as the ever-growing demand for energy.
The talks, filled with concrete examples, highlighted the responsibilities and contradictions of countries that regard nuclear energy and the rare minerals required to build the computers running AI as unlimited resources, without weighing the geopolitical consequences of the race for these raw materials.
The violence tied to recent conflicts in Central Africa should weigh on the conscience of many policymakers (including French ones) and of those who elected them.
Other round tables addressed AI’s impact on labor (with noteworthy contributions from union representatives asserting that the “true AI experts” are often its first victims), the relationship between education and AI, and the effect of AI on creative professions (artists, writers, journalists, voice actors).
Seen in this light, Macron’s stances—centered on an all-or-nothing approach that dismisses environmental and social complexities—appear all the more fragile, especially given France’s recent history of warfare and neocolonial interventions.
While the event at the Grand Palais and the OECD gathered high-profile figures and major funders, the counter-summit at the Théâtre de la Concorde instead provided space for more critical and nuanced thinking, grounded in an idea of a collective, participatory AI built on transparency and shared accountability.
If nothing else, these two Parisian gatherings confirmed that the debate on artificial intelligence is of utmost importance. Defining rules, ethical perspectives, and visions of the future ultimately means choosing the kind of society we aim to build for ourselves and those who will follow us on Earth.
Sadin’s voice, joined by other intellectuals and activists, serves as a warning not to unthinkingly accept an acceleration of AI that may end up being an end in itself, benefiting a few while endangering many.
In other words, we should not be dazzled by the mirage of a neutral and redemptive technology, but rather question the concrete—economic, environmental, and social—conditions that could make the digital revolution an opportunity for everyone or, conversely, yet another instrument of power.
It seems unlikely, however, that movements like Sadin’s can truly influence the course of AI’s development without, at some point, engaging with some multilateral body dealing with AI: this is, fundamentally, an international contest.
The debate, in Paris as elsewhere, is only just beginning—but here in Paris, at least, it promises to be lively.
The conversation has been going on for eight months. They
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