During this exchange with a leader of the Le Monde group, he explained that he had discussed with President Emmanuel Macron on Tuesday how to find "the right balance between protection and positive impact" of this technology, repeating this credo on the stage of Station F, a start-up incubator.

"We plan to comply" with the future European regulation (IA Act) and "we really love Europe" but "we want to make sure that we are technically capable of it," he said.

Asked what was bothering him about the ongoing draft regulations, he replied: "An authorisation regime for the general framework and safety standards are quite relevant, it suits me very well". "But to say, while you don't know how generative AI works: +you have to respect this guarantee 100% of the time+, honestly, we don't know how to do it," he nuanced.

On Wednesday, in London, Sam Altman had threatened to leave the EU if the regulation became too restrictive and criticized the future AI Act. This had triggered Thursday the anger of European Commissioner Thierry Breton, who cried "blackmail" and tweeted: "is it a threat?".

On Friday morning, the creator of ChatGPT sought to calm the controversy. "Very productive week of conversations in Europe on the best way to regulate AI! We are delighted to continue operating here and of course have no intention of leaving," he tweeted.

Sam Altman (r), boss of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, during a meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron at the Elysee Palace on May 23, 2023 in Paris © Yoan VALAT / POOL / AFP

In the afternoon, on the stage of Station F, where he was preceded by the Minister Delegate for Digital Jean-Noël Barrot, the leader also praised the reception of the France, "a very interesting case, much more advanced in this technology and in its adoption than other countries. And engineering talent is very aggressive," he said, in front of an audience that included many start-up representatives.

However, he refrained from saying whether he planned to set up a headquarters in the country or elsewhere in Europe. "We will open headquarters around the world but very slowly we are still a small company."

Exchange with Le Monde

Among the audience, Louis Dreyfus, the chairman of the board of Le Monde, asked him about the future.

"My business model is to pay talented journalists to produce content and have people pay for it. I spoke with other publishers, who see AI as producing content without any human interaction and for free. Can you tell me how not to be scared by this and what will be my business model in the future?" he said, applauded by the audience.

"You're one of the biggest newspapers in the world and I don't think you're going to be duplicated by AI anytime soon," Altman replied. "But I bet your journalists can use AI in their creative process, do better investigations, come up with better ideas."

Sam Altman, boss of OpenAI and creator of ChatGPT, at Station F, on May 26, 2023 in Paris © JOEL SAGET / AFP

"There's something deep about human taste and about humans knowing what other humans want and asking questions. And people want to know which journalist wrote and have a connection with the person who created, even though there could be great texts written by AIs," he added.

Paris is one of the stops on the tour of the creator of ChatGPT, who travels the world to reassure about AI and prevent overly restrictive regulation.

While stressing its benefits for science and progress, he reiterated his support for global regulation of a technology that can "do a lot" of harm. But Sam Altman had also estimated before US senators in mid-May that regulation should not slow down the American industry in the face of China.

OpenAI's generative AI, ChatGPT for text and Dall-E for image, which opened to the general public at the end of 2022 with dazzling success and in a legal vacuum, have triggered an avalanche of fears, including misinformation, job destruction and looting of works.

© 2023 AFP