A speech by the US vice-president, JD Vance, symbolised a fracturing consensus on how to approach AI. He attended the summit with other global leaders, including the Indian prime minister, Narendra Modi, the Canadian PM, Justin Trudeau, and the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen. In his speech in the Grand Palais, Vance made it clear the US was not going to be held back from developing the tech by global regulation or an excessive focus on safety. "We need international regulatory regimes that foster the creation of AI technology rather than strangle it, and we need our European friends, in particular, to look to this new frontier with optimism rather than trepidation," he said. Speaking in front of the country's vice-premier, Zhang Guoqing, Vance warned his peers against cooperating with "authoritarian" regimes – in a clear reference to Beijing.

The United States and United Kingdom have refused to sign an Artificial Intelligence Action Summit declaration calling for policies "ensuring AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy". The summit in Paris on Monday and Tuesday brought together representatives from more than 100 countries to discuss how to reach a consensus on guiding the development of AI. "We are still in the early days, and I already believe AI will be the most profound shift of our lifetimes," Google CEO Sundar Pichai told the summit. The meeting, which was held amid a three-way race for AI dominance, revealed a divide in the priorities of some nations. While Europe is seeking to regulate and invest, China is focused on expanding access through state-backed tech giants, and the US is pushing for a hands-off approach in terms of regulation. Here's what you need to know about the summit and the AI race: Some leaders at the summit emphasised the need for the creation of a diverse and inclusive AI "ecosystem" that is human rights-based, ethical, safe and trustworthy.

Safety concerns are out, optimism is in: that was the takeaway from a major artificial intelligence summit in Paris this week, as leaders from the U.S., France, and beyond threw their weight behind the AI industry. Although there were divisions between major nations--the U.S. and the U.K. did not sign a final statement endorsed by 60 nations calling for an "inclusive" and "open" AI sector--the focus of the two-day meeting was markedly different from the last such gathering. Last year, in Seoul, the emphasis was on defining red-lines for the AI industry. The concern: that the technology, although holding great promise, also had the potential for great harm. The final statement made no mention of significant AI risks nor attempts to mitigate them, while in a speech on Tuesday, U.S. Vice President J.D. Vance said: "I'm not here this morning to talk about AI safety, which was the title of the conference a couple of years ago. I'm here to talk about AI opportunity."