With the AI Seoul Summit 2024 on its second day and a major pledge by the 16 AI companies to develop the technology safely at a time when regulators are scrambling to keep up with rapid innovation and emerging risks of AI to announcements of new deals on cooperation in the field between France and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), it appears that dust is not settling over the industry.
Since the launch of ChatGPT late in 2022 through transformative changes in the year that followed, the past week and a previous couple of days saw the AI industry being shaken further as major players seek to integrate it across business specter, in personal computers, by enhancing video capabilities and by forging new partnerships.
Just as OpenAI, considered a pioneer in the field, presented its new GPT-4o model, Alphabet's Google followed by previewing its Project Astra – which it calls the "future of AI assistants" and which could see, understand and respond to the world around it through a smartphone camera or smart glasses.
Similarly, Microsoft, having its developer conference in Seattle, stepped into the whirlwind and, ahead of the event, debuted a line of "Copilot+" personal computers with AI features that let users search through their past actions in nearly any software.
At the conference, Chief Executive Satya Nadella promoted new application programming interfaces, or APIs, that make it easier for developers to tap into AI technology offered by Microsoft. At the same time, the company also detailed new features for its Copilot AI software that helps business productivity applications such as email and its Teams video and text chat product.
GPT-4o and 'her'
Wowing the audience with the futuristic capabilities of its new AI model, as showcased by its CTO Mira Murati and team members, from the ability of GPT-4o to translate from Italian to English in real-time and solve math issues, OpenAI saw some "drama" soon after. Still, it also announced new deals with Reddit and pharma giant Sanofi.
Just after showing off model capabilities, the San Francisco-based research and development company confirmed the departure of one of its co-founders and chief scientist, Ilya Sutskever, and it has also disbanded a team devoted to mitigating the long-term dangers of super-smart artificial intelligence.
Moreover, OpenAI also found itself in hot water over a humanlike voice given to its chatbot, which drew the ire of actress Scarlett Johansson, who targeted the startup, claiming it was "eerily similar" to hers and prompting the firm to take it down.
OpenAI chief Sam Altman publicly apologized to Johansson Tuesday after the movie star said she was "shocked" by a new synthetic voice released by the ChatGPT-maker as she had earlier allegedly declined to provide the voiceover herself.
"Out of respect for Ms. Johansson, we have paused using Sky's voice in our products. We are sorry to Ms. Johansson that we didn't communicate better," he said in a statement, referring to "Sky" as one of several voices unveiled last week with the release of its higher-performing and even more humanlike GPT-4o AI technology.
Some analysts questioned whether the "Black Widow" actress would take any legal action, recalling her earlier settlement with Disney over the breach of contract in the Marvel movie.
Johansson starred in Spike Jonze's sci-fi movie "Her" in 2013, playing the role of Samantha, an artificially intelligent virtual assistant personified through a female voice. Shortly after the release of GPT-4o, Altman tweeted solely "her" on his social media account X, formerly Twitter, leading many to tie it directly with the film from a decade earlier.
AI Seoul Summit, EU law
Focusing on AI safety, the Seoul summit comes at the time when the European Union Council also gave the final greenlight to the first worldwide rules on AI, the so-called AI Act, which "aims to foster the development and uptake of safe and trustworthy AI systems across the EU’s single market by both private and public actors."
The European Commission proposed the first draft of the AI Act in April 2021, having published a "white paper" outlining its plan for a risk-based approach in February 2020.
Pushing for stricter rules, the negotiators reached a preliminary agreement on the law in December; in March, the European Parliament formally endorsed it and after final approval on Tuesday, it now must be signed by the presidents of the EU legislature and then published in the EU's statute book, before gradually entering into force over the next two years.
The law constitutes several aspects, including categorizing "different types of artificial intelligence according to risk," addressing the use of general-purpose AI (GPAI) models and providing a framework for penalties.
The Seoul summit, on the other hand, builds on the legacy of the first AI Safety Summit, which was hosted by the U.K. at Bletchley Park in November 2023, bringing together international governments, AI companies, academia and civil society to advance global discussions on AI.
Co-hosted by the governments of the U.K. and South Korea, the event is more virtual and excludes the direct participation of figures such as the U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres or U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who attended the inaugural event last year.
The U.N. chief said in a video address that there needs to be universal guardrails and regular dialogue on AI. "We cannot sleepwalk into a dystopian future where the power of AI is controlled by a few people – or worse, by algorithms beyond human understanding," he said.
The 16 AI companies that signed up for the safety commitments during the summit, apart from Google, Meta and OpenAI also include Amazon, Microsoft, Samsung, IBM, xAI, France's Mistral AI, China's Zhipu.ai, and G42 of the UAE.
They vowed to ensure the safety of their most advanced AI models with promises of accountable governance and public transparency.
New deals
Among some of the deals and in-between conferences is the inter-governmental deal involving France and the UAE, according to a report from Agence-France Presse (AFP).
France and the UAE signed a "strategic partnership" on artificial intelligence on Tuesday, French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire told AFP. The partnership aims to boost cooperation between them.
The agreement signed with Khaldoon Al Mubarak, managing director of the Abu Dhabi government-controlled fund Mubadala, opens "a new era of economic cooperation" in the burgeoning sector, Le Maire said.
"France has chosen to be the leading country in Europe on AI, and for that, we need partners," he said during a visit to the Gulf state at the head of a delegation of entrepreneurs and startups.
The Gulf countries, including the Emirati and Saudi Arabia, are reportedly seeking their share in the burgeoning sector, one recent agreement being that of tech giant Microsoft announcing last month it would invest $1.5 billion in the UAE-based artificial intelligence technology company G42.
On the other hand, France is home to AI startup Mistral AI, one of the rare European players among a vast number of those based in Silicon Valley and has also recently attracted billions in investment from giants such as e-commerce behemoth Amazon and Microsoft.
Its capital is also hosting Europe's self-declared biggest startup event, VivaTech, which this year will focus on artificial intelligence, starting Wednesday.
The four-day event, now in its eighth year, will host more than 150,000 guests, 11,000 startups and 450 speakers, according to the organizers.
While former U.S. climate envoy and Secretary of State John Kerry is expected to advocate for a green tech revolution, billionaire Tesla and SpaceX owner Elon Musk will appear via video link to answer audience questions.
Among other deals, French pharmaceutical company Sanofi announced Tuesday a partnership with OpenAI and U.S. biotech firm Formation Bio to accelerate the use of artificial intelligence in developing drugs as AI appears to be playing an ever-greater role in developing new medicines.
In a statement, Sanofi said: "The three teams will bring together data, software and tuned models to develop custom, purpose-built solutions across the drug development lifecycle."
"Sanofi will leverage this partnership to provide access to proprietary data to develop AI models as it continues on its path to becoming the first biopharma company powered by AI at scale," it said.
OpenAI "will contribute access to cutting-edge AI capabilities, including the ability to fine-tune models, deep AI expertise and dedicated thought partnership and resources."