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French President Emmanuel Macron announced Sunday that investors will pour €100 billion into France’s AI projects over the coming years. The announcement came ahead of a two-day AI action summit that recently kicked off in Paris, where political leaders, tech executives, academic scholars, and AI experts are gathering to discuss the future of the technology.
Macron’s deepfake video raises eyebrows
To promote the AI Action Summit, President Macron posted a video featuring AI-generated deepfakes of himself in various pop culture scenes. His AI doppelganger appears dancing in an ‘80s disco music video, making a cameo in the action series MacGyver, and even leading a YouTube hair tutorial.
In the video, Macron praised the deepfakes’ quality, saying “It’s pretty well done, it made me laugh.”
However, AI experts and critics, both in France and around the world, argue that the lighthearted approach could normalize deepfakes, a technology often used for misinformation, identify fraud, and even revenge porn. Given Macron’s status as president of one of the most prominent countries in Europe, many are concerned that his influence might sway people to dismiss the dangers of deepfakes.
“President Macron’s deepfake might seem like harmless fun to promote the AI Summit in Paris, but it is not in general a good thing,” Paul McKay, principal analyst at technology consultancy Forrester, told the BBC.
“Normalising deepfakes in this way should not be encouraged as it continues the difficulty with telling what is real and what isn’t, and is ultimately helping to establish what is fact from fiction,” he added.
AI Summit kicks off French investment in AI
During the summit, President Macron positioned France’s €100+ billion AI investment as a strategic move to compete with the Stargate initiative recently announced by U.S. President Trump. Through this project, which was led by OpenAI, the U.S. will invest over $500 in artificial intelligence infrastructure. Macron’s announcement signals France’s ambition to remain a key player in the evolving AI landscape.
Several world leaders are attending the AI Summit, including India’s prime minister Narendra Modi, who is co-chairing the summit alongside Macron. Other notable political guests include U.S. vice-president JD Vance and Chinese vice-premier Zhang Guoqing. The summit runs through Wednesday, Feb. 11.