By AFP
February 6, 2025
The EU's sweeping risk-based rules will cover all types of artificial intelligence - Copyright AFP JADE GAO
Mona GUICHARD and Tom BARFIELD
Global experts will debate threats from artificial intelligence (AI) at a gathering in Paris on Thursday and Friday, ahead of a summit of world leaders on the fast-moving technology.
Thousands are expected for the event aiming to find common ground on a technology that has upset many business sectors in less than two years — as well as to keep France and Europe on the map as credible contenders in the AI race.
Paris’ ambitions also stretch to stoking citizens’ interest in real-world uses of AI, taking stock of global governance of the technology and promoting ethical, accessible and frugal options.
Scientists including Yann LeCun, AI chief for Facebook owner Meta, will discuss its impact on fields including work, health and sustainability from Thursday at the prestigious Polytechnique engineering school.
The Frenchman, one of the fathers of the current wave of AI, and 20 other high-profile researchers dined with Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday, the French president’s Elysee Palace office said.
Saturday and Sunday will see talks on AI’s impact on culture before heads of state and government from around 100 countries and global tech industry leaders gather on Monday and Tuesday.
– DeepSeek invited –
High-profile attendees will include US Vice President JD Vance, Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi is co-hosting the summit as Macron seeks to involve the Global South in a technology battle that is for now largely playing out between the United States and China.
Macron, pictured here at a previous AI event in 2024, now hosts a summit on the technology in Paris – Copyright AFP Richard A. Brooks
Macron’s office said he would also host United Arab Emirates leader Mohamed Bin Zayed al Nahyan, widely known as “MBZ”, on Thursday to discuss “our two countries’ common ambition on AI”.
From the business side, X and Tesla chief Elon Musk has yet to confirm attendance — as has Liang Wengfeng, founder of Chinese startup DeepSeek, which shocked the world with its frugal, high-performance R1 model last week.
American figures such as OpenAI’s Sam Altman and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, as well as Arthur Mensch of French AI developer Mistral, will all join the gathering.
In science, Meta’s LeCun will be flanked by the likes of Demis Hassabis, the Nobel chemistry prize-winning head of Google’s DeepMind AI research lab, and Berkeley machine learning researcher Michael Jordan.
Three more Nobel winners — computer scientist Geoffrey Hinton, journalist Maria Ressa and economist Joseph Stiglitz — will join a conference hosted by the International Association for Safe and Ethical AI (IASEI), created only last year.
– French AI efforts –
France hopes that the conference can reinforce its leading European position in AI, having already drawn several labs from leading AI firms to Paris, including Google, Meta and OpenAI.
The Polytechnique school has been singled out to host the scientific conference as a symbol of French excellence in the field.
“This summit has to be a moment to position Paris as the global capital of AI,” digital minister Clara Chappaz told AFP journalists.
After a month in which DeepSeek’s emergence shocked even Silicon Valley titans and the United States announced a $500-billion AI investment scheme, France and Europe have a lot to prove in the coming days.
Paris plans to announce major investments running into the billions, including for new data centres on its territory.
AI starts to help India’s struggling farms
By AFP
February 7, 2025
Much of India's vast agricultural economy remains deeply traditional, beset by problems made worse by extreme weather driven by climate change - Copyright AFP -
Aishwarya KUMAR
Each morning Indian farmer R Murali opens an app on his phone to check if his pomegranate trees need watering, fertiliser or are at risk from pests.
“It is a routine,” Murali, 51, told AFP at his farm in the southern state of Karnataka. “Like praying to God every day.”
Much of India’s vast agricultural economy — employing more than 45 percent of the workforce — remains deeply traditional, beset by problems made worse by extreme weather driven by climate change.
Murali is part of an increasing number of growers in the world’s most populous nation who have adopted artificial intelligence-powered tools, which he says helps him farm “more efficiently and effectively”.
“The app is the first thing I check as soon as I wake up,” said Murali, whose farm is planted with sensors providing constant updates on soil moisture, nutrient levels and farm-level weather forecasts.
He says the AI system developed by tech startup Fasal, which details when and how much water, fertiliser and pesticide is needed, has slashed costs by a fifth without reducing yields.
“What we have built is a technology that allows crops to talk to their farmers,” said Ananda Verma, a founder of Fasal, which serves around 12,000 farmers.
Verma, 35, who began developing the system in 2017 to understand soil moisture as a “do-it-yourself” project for his father’s farm, called it a tool “to make better decisions”.
– Costly –
But Fasal’s products cost between $57 and $287 to install.
That is a high price in a country where farmers’ average monthly income is $117, and where over 85 percent of farms are smaller than two hectares (five acres), according to government figures.
“We have the technology, but the availability of risk capital in India is limited,” said Verma.
New Delhi says it is determined to develop homegrown and low-cost AI, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to co-host an AI summit in France opening on Monday.
Agriculture, which accounts for roughly 15 percent of India’s economy, is one area ripe for its application. Farms are in dire need of investment and modernisation.
Water shortages, floods and increasingly erratic weather, as well as debt, have taken a heavy toll in an industry that employs roughly two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion population.
India is already home to over 450 agritech startups with the sector’s projected valuation at $24 billion, according to a 2023 report by the government NITI Aayog think tank.
But the report also warned that a lack of digital literacy often resulted in the poor adoption of agritech solutions.
– Buzzing –
Among those companies is Niqo Robotics, which has developed a system using AI cameras attached to focused chemical spraying machines.
Tractor-fitted sprays assess each plant to provide the ideal amount of chemicals, reducing input costs and limiting environmental damage, it says.
Niqo claims its users in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh states have cut their outlay on chemicals by up to 90 percent.
At another startup, BeePrecise, Rishina Kuruvilla is part of team that has developed AI monitors measuring the health of beehives.
That includes moisture, temperature and even the sound of bees — a way to track the queen bee’s activities.
Kuruvilla said the tool helped beekeepers harvest honey that is “a little more organic and better for consumption”.
– State help –
But while AI tech is blossoming, takeup among farmers is slow because many cannot afford it.
Agricultural economist RS Deshpande, a visiting professor at Bengaluru’s Institute for Social and Economic Change, says the government must meet the cost.
Many farmers “are surviving” only because they eat what they grow, he said.
“Since they own a farm, they take the farm produce home,” he said. “If the government is ready, India is ready.”
By AFP
February 7, 2025
Much of India's vast agricultural economy remains deeply traditional, beset by problems made worse by extreme weather driven by climate change - Copyright AFP -
Aishwarya KUMAR
Each morning Indian farmer R Murali opens an app on his phone to check if his pomegranate trees need watering, fertiliser or are at risk from pests.
“It is a routine,” Murali, 51, told AFP at his farm in the southern state of Karnataka. “Like praying to God every day.”
Much of India’s vast agricultural economy — employing more than 45 percent of the workforce — remains deeply traditional, beset by problems made worse by extreme weather driven by climate change.
Murali is part of an increasing number of growers in the world’s most populous nation who have adopted artificial intelligence-powered tools, which he says helps him farm “more efficiently and effectively”.
“The app is the first thing I check as soon as I wake up,” said Murali, whose farm is planted with sensors providing constant updates on soil moisture, nutrient levels and farm-level weather forecasts.
He says the AI system developed by tech startup Fasal, which details when and how much water, fertiliser and pesticide is needed, has slashed costs by a fifth without reducing yields.
“What we have built is a technology that allows crops to talk to their farmers,” said Ananda Verma, a founder of Fasal, which serves around 12,000 farmers.
Verma, 35, who began developing the system in 2017 to understand soil moisture as a “do-it-yourself” project for his father’s farm, called it a tool “to make better decisions”.
– Costly –
But Fasal’s products cost between $57 and $287 to install.
That is a high price in a country where farmers’ average monthly income is $117, and where over 85 percent of farms are smaller than two hectares (five acres), according to government figures.
“We have the technology, but the availability of risk capital in India is limited,” said Verma.
New Delhi says it is determined to develop homegrown and low-cost AI, with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi to co-host an AI summit in France opening on Monday.
Agriculture, which accounts for roughly 15 percent of India’s economy, is one area ripe for its application. Farms are in dire need of investment and modernisation.
Water shortages, floods and increasingly erratic weather, as well as debt, have taken a heavy toll in an industry that employs roughly two-thirds of India’s 1.4 billion population.
India is already home to over 450 agritech startups with the sector’s projected valuation at $24 billion, according to a 2023 report by the government NITI Aayog think tank.
But the report also warned that a lack of digital literacy often resulted in the poor adoption of agritech solutions.
– Buzzing –
Among those companies is Niqo Robotics, which has developed a system using AI cameras attached to focused chemical spraying machines.
Tractor-fitted sprays assess each plant to provide the ideal amount of chemicals, reducing input costs and limiting environmental damage, it says.
Niqo claims its users in Maharashtra and Andhra Pradesh states have cut their outlay on chemicals by up to 90 percent.
At another startup, BeePrecise, Rishina Kuruvilla is part of team that has developed AI monitors measuring the health of beehives.
That includes moisture, temperature and even the sound of bees — a way to track the queen bee’s activities.
Kuruvilla said the tool helped beekeepers harvest honey that is “a little more organic and better for consumption”.
– State help –
But while AI tech is blossoming, takeup among farmers is slow because many cannot afford it.
Agricultural economist RS Deshpande, a visiting professor at Bengaluru’s Institute for Social and Economic Change, says the government must meet the cost.
Many farmers “are surviving” only because they eat what they grow, he said.
“Since they own a farm, they take the farm produce home,” he said. “If the government is ready, India is ready.”
