European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen addressed G7 leaders and technology executives on Wednesday, making the case that the United States and the European Union both stand to benefit from ensuring Europeans have access to top-tier artificial intelligence tools.
Speaking at a lunch in Evian-les-Bains, France, von der Leyen emphasized the deep ties between the two economies. “We use each other’s trusted technology, and our financial systems are interconnected. It is in our mutual interest that our citizens and companies can safely use the best AI models,” she said.
The EU chief also offered an analogy to underscore her point about safety standards: “We test planes before flying them. The US and EU are world leaders in aviation safety, and we can also show the way also in AI… I’m looking forward to working together with the U.S. on this.”
Her comments came in the wake of a significant disruption in the AI sector. Anthropic pulled its most advanced AI models from users last week after the U.S. government directed the company to cut off access for foreign nationals.
One of those models, Anthropic’s Mythos, was designed to identify weaknesses in computer code as a way to strengthen defenses against cyberattacks. However, cybersecurity experts have raised concerns that the same technology could potentially be used to supercharge attacks on the very banking systems it was built to protect.
