By Robert Booth
Publication Date: 2026-02-19 08:26:00
Emmanuel Macron has hit back at US criticism of Europe’s efforts to regulate AI and vowed to protect children from “digital abuse” during France’s G7 presidency.
At the AI Impact summit in Delhi, the French president called for tougher protections after global outrage that Elon Musk’s Grok chatbot was used to generate tens of thousands of sexualized images of children and amid growing concerns about the concentration of AI power in a handful of companies.
His comments were echoed by António Guterres, the United Nations secretary-general, who told delegates – including several US tech billionaires – that “no child should be a test subject for unregulated AI.”
“The future of AI cannot be decided by a few countries or left to the whims of a few billionaires,” Guterres said. “AI must belong to everyone.”
Bill Gates’ speech was planned but pulled out at the last minute amid renewed scrutiny of his past links to convicted child sex offender Jeffrey…
