The French Treasury has just published a depressing but realistic note on the ability of France, and more broadly Europe, to carve out a place for itself in the artificial intelligence sector, dominated by the GAFAMS. The note has been criticized by the cultural world for suggesting, with little argument, that the transparency requirement for generative AI training data, which has just been adopted at European level, should be downplayed. The French Ministry of the Economy’s Treasury Department has published a note entitled « the artificial intelligence value chain: economic issues and France’s place ». Far from the grand declarations and rhetoric of France 2030, the note presents a cold, and to put it bluntly, almost despairing snapshot of France’s, and more broadly Europe’s, place in this sector of the future. To put it in a nutshell, the conclusion we can draw from the note is that France and Europe will be users of AI, but probably not players in the sector, and even less beneficiaries of the economic spin-offs of AI, except perhaps in specialized models. Of course, companies can hope to increase their productivity as users, and that’s something. In short, we’re here at the Treasury Department, a serious body, and realism is the order of the day, not political…
