Macron Shares Deepfakes As AI Summit Begins

French president Emmanuel Macron has shared a montage of deepfake videos of himself on social media as an AI summit begins in Paris.

The AI Action Summit, taking place on Monday and Tuesday, brings together heads of state, tech executives and academics to examine the effects of artificial intelligence (AI) on society, governance and the environment.

Macron said France would announce private sector investments totalling some 109 billion euros (£91bn) into the country’s AI sector during the event.

The investments include 20bn euros from Canadian investment firm Brookfield, the bulk of which is expected to go toward an AI data centre, La Tribune de Dimanche reported.

Investment

Another 50bn euros from the United Arab Emirates will go toward a 1 gigawatt data centre, the Elysee Palace said.

Macron said the investments are “the equivalent for France of what the US has announced with ‘Stargate'”, referring to a project from OpenAI, Oracle and SoftBank to invest up to $500bn (£404bn)in US AI infrastructure.

To promote the summit Macron released deepfaked videos of himself merging his face with clips from popular films, TV series and influencer videos, saying, “Nicely done.”

The montage, shared by the president on Instagram, TikTok and X, show him dancing to a 1980s disco hit, giving an influencer’s hair tutorial and as action hero MacGyver, among others.

Such videos have become popular on social media in recent months.

“It’s pretty well done, it made me laugh,” Macron said.

“But more seriously, with artificial intelligence, we can do some very big things: change healthcare, energy, life in our society.

‘Seize every opportunity’

“France and Europe must be at the heart of this revolution to seize every opportunity and also to promote our own principles.”

The EU’s AI Act, which regulates the technology, has been criticised at the event for stifling innovation at a time when the US administration is looking to drastically reduce regulatory oversight across many sectors.

At the event the EU also announced plans for a Europe-wide open source AI model funded to the tune of 37.4m euros.

A shared declaration of AI goals and responsibilities is to be released at the end of the Summit on Tuesday.