France and Canada move forward with plans for global AI expert council

How will humanity manage the growth of artificial intelligence systems? To answer that, French and Canadian officials are drafting a blueprint for an expert council that they hope could be a prototype for global cooperation on AI policy. The Global Partnership for AI (GPAI), advanced over the past year by French president Emmanuel Macron and Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau, has started to take shape in a series of transatlantic negotiations in the past few months. While many details have yet to be resolved, negotiators hope for a general understanding by the end of this year, according to Malik Ghallab, director emeritus of a French state robotics lab in Toulouse, who is active in the planning process. The idea is to create a standing forum – involving government, industry and academia – to monitor and debate the policy implications of AI globally.