France appoints first AI minister
Clara Chappaz has been made France’s first AI minister and will assume the role in prime minister Michel Barnier’s new cabinet.
The decision to appoint a dedicated AI official came amid political unrest following France’s legislative elections in June and July. Subsequently, leadership positions in the French government have undergone significant change.
Chappaz is the former director of the French Tech Mission, which France’s public administration set up to support French tech start-up programmes. Responding to the news of her appointment, Chappaz took to LinkedIn to say she was pleased to further her “commitment to public action on these major subjects of digital and artificial intelligence”.
She is expected to report to France’s Ministry of Higher Education and Research, a change from her predecessor, who reported to the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
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‘An existential battle’
Chappaz’s official title is secretary of state for AI and digitalisation. The position did not previously include reference to AI and the change in part reflects France’s push to lead the world in AI technologies.
In May this year, President Emmanuel Macron expressed his wish to turn Paris into a globally recognised AI hub.
During a talk with tech leaders and politicians, Macron said he believed:“The city of lights will become the city of artificial intelligence.”
He added: “The battle for artificial intelligence is an existential battle, on which our ability to create wealth will depend”.
France is due to welcome national governments at the International AI Summit in February next year, taking the baton from previous hosts the United Kingdom and South Korea.
The government published France’s national AI strategy in August 2023, pledging €500m (US$554m) in investment to “create champions” in AI by 2030.
The country currently has two generative AI rivals to ChatGPT, including Mistral AI, founded in 2023 by former employees of Meta Platforms and Google DeepMind, and H, a Parisian startup formerly known as Holistic AI.
Read more: First global AI treaty signed by US, UK and EU governments
Following Albert
In April, France’s former prime minister Gabriel Attal announced the implementation of a French-made AI system to streamline administrative procedures.
The programme known as ‘Albert’ is an AI tool created to help public officials to answer frequently asked questions, with the aim of saving agencies time and improving efficiency.
The tool will be used by tax agents to handle queries, for example, and responses will be validated or modified by an agent where needed.
Programmes like Albert could be usedto accelerate environmental project submissions for wind farms and urban developments, as well as to automate tasks such as the transcription of legal hearings, complaint filings and medical reports.
Albert is expected to be used from the end of 2024.
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About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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