'We're in this moment that I've never seen before,' the OpenAI CEO said during the AI Action Summit in Paris
Vance warns world leaders against 'excessive' AI regulation
Vice President JD Vance addressed the AI Action Summit in Paris Tuesday during his first foreign trip since taking office. (AP)
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman commended Vice President JD Vance's artificial intelligence (AI) speech in Paris on Tuesday while laying out his vision for how people can take advantage of the rapidly evolving technology at the same conference.
Altman and Vance appeared Tuesday at the AI Action Summit in Paris, where world leaders, top tech executives and policymakers teamed up to hash out tech policy and its intersection with global security, economics and governance.
During his remarks, Vance called for AI systems developed in the U.S. to remain free of "ideological bias" and vowed that the U.S. would "never restrict our citizens' right to free speech."
Vance also pushed for a "deregulatory flavor" to emerge at the conference while cautioning against the pitfalls of "excessive regulation" that could hamper a transformative industry. He also vowed that the U.S. would back pro-growth AI policies.
Open AI CEO Sam Altman and JD Vance, US vice president, spoke at the AI Action Summit in Paris, France, on Tuesday, Feb. 11, 2025. (Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
"We believe that excessive regulation of the AI sector could kill a transformative industry just as it's taking off, and we'll make every effort to encourage pro-growth AI policies and I'd like to see that deregulatory flavor making its way into a lot of the conversations at this conference," the vice president said.
When asked about his advice to everyone trying to get in the AI race and advantage of new models, Altman told the conference there are two directions people can take to harness their capabilities.
"Vice President Vance said a lot of things that I really liked but one of them, a point that he hit a few times, was just the scale of the economic opportunity …. he used the phrase "lightning in a bottle" and I really think it's this moment – I think it was like a great a great phrase – we are in this moment that I've never seen before," he said.
Altman opined that perhaps the world was in a similar situation during the Industrial Revolution or the beginning of the internet but noted that there would be a massive economic impact as the cost of computers lowers and the monetary value of AI work increases.
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US Vice President JD Vance gestures as he speaks during a plenary session at the Artificial Intelligence (AI) Action Summit, at the Grand Palais, in Paris, on February 11, 2025. (LUDOVIC MARIN/AFP)
He pointed to software engineering agents as just one example of how companies can run better people and do "way more with way less."
Altman noted that the second direction is building consumer-facing and business-facing products that use AI in this fundamental way.
"Chat GPT is one example of that – a lot of other companies have done great stuff there. I think people should be imagining more than they are – I think a lot of people are still thinking about like last year's AI which was just much more limited, and what you can do now is like really quite remarkable," he added.
Other world leaders who attended the AI Action Summit include French President Emmanuel Macron, Indian Prime Minister Shri Modi and Chinese Vice Premier Zhang Guoqing.
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Open AI CEO Sam Altman, center, speaks with boxer Jake Paul and wrestler Logan Paul in Emancipation Hall at the 60th Presidential Inauguration, Monday, Jan. 20, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington. (Al Drago/Pool Photo via AP)
During the event, Vance also issued a warning to other foreign governments about "tightening the screws" on U.S. tech companies with international footprints, claiming the Trump administration would not tolerate such limitations. He also cautioned against working with adversaries who have "weaponized A.I. software to rewrite history, surveil users and censor speech."
Vance's comments coincide with some recent actions from the Trump administration to advance AI in the U.S.
In January, Trump unveiled a new $500 billion AI infrastructure project called Stargate, a datacenter joint venture between investment holding company Softbank, and tech companies OpenAI and Oracle that Trump labeled the "largest AI infrastructure project in history."
The project includes an initial investment of $100 billion that is slated to grow to $500 billion over Trump's term in office and will build "colossal" data centers in the U.S. to power AI.
Fox News' Diana Stancy contributed to this report.
Nikolas Lanum is an associate editor for Fox News Digital.
