‘Nicely done’: French President Emmanuel Macron reacts to fake AI videos
French President Emmanuel Macron has praised a series of fake AI-generated videos of himself on social media.
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Emmanuel Macron has reacted to a series of fake artificial intelligence-generated videos of himself, including those showing the French President singing with long blonde hair and resembling TV character MacGyver.
Mr Macron shared the fake videos in a post on social media to promote a two-day summit on artificial intelligence, which opened in Paris on Monday.
In one clip, the 47-year-old is seen dancing to a 1980s hit song ‘Voyage Voyage’ by French singer Desireless.
In another, he is inserted in a spy comedy film about the exploits of a French secret agent played by Jean Dujardin.
In a third, he sings a rap song and shows off his moves, channelling French performer Nekfeu.
Other clips show Mr Macron singing with long blonde hair, and tying long brown hair into a bun on his head.
The video ends with one of the most famous parodies in which Mr Macron is depicted as US television action hero MacGyver, known for his looks and resourcefulness.
“There, that’s definitely me,” the real Macron, who sported a suit and tie, quipped in the video.
Reacting to the clips in the video, Mr Macron said: “Nicely done”
“It’s pretty well done, it made me laugh,” he added, before turning his attention to the broader use of AI.
“More seriously, with artificial intelligence, we can do some very big things: change healthcare, energy, life in our society”, the President said.
“France and Europe must be at the heart of this revolution to seize every opportunity and also to promote our principles.”
Mr Macron’s video racked up over 255,800 views, with some online saying they thought the President’s Instagram account had been hacked.
“A cool president,” said one comment.
“Excellent bravo Mr President,” said another.
Call for greater AI regulation
Experts from around the world have called for greater regulation of AI to prevent it escaping human control, as global leaders gather in Paris for a summit on the technology.
France, co-hosting the Monday and Tuesday gathering with India, has chosen to spotlight AI ‘action’ in 2025 rather than put the safety concerns front and centre as at the previous meetings in Britain’s Bletchley Park in 2023 and the Korean capital Seoul in 2024.
The French vision is for governments, businesses and other actors to come out in favour of global governance for AI and make commitments on sustainability, without setting binding rules.
“We don’t want to spend our time talking only about the risks. There’s the very real opportunity aspect as well,” said Anne Bouverot, AI envoy for President Emmanuel Macron.
Max Tegmark, head of the US-based Future of Life Institute that has regularly warned of AI’s dangers, told AFP that France should not miss the opportunity to act.
“France has been a wonderful champion of international collaboration and has the opportunity to really lead the rest of the world,” the MIT physicist said.
“There is a big fork in the road here at the Paris summit and it should be embraced.”
‘Will to survive’
Mr Tegmark’s institute has backed the Sunday launch of a platform dubbed Global Risk and AI Safety Preparedness (GRASP) that aims to map major risks linked to AI and solutions being developed around the world.
“We’ve identified around 300 tools and technologies in answer to these risks,” said GRASP co-ordinator Cyrus Hodes.
Results from the survey will be passed to the OECD rich-countries club and members of the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), a grouping of almost 30 nations including major European economies, Japan, South Korea and the United States that will meet in Paris Sunday.
The past week also saw the presentation of the first International AI Safety Report on Thursday, compiled by 96 experts and backed by 30 countries, the UN, EU and OECD.
Risks outlined in the document range from the familiar, such as fake content online, to the far more alarming.
“Proof is steadily appearing of additional risks like biological attacks or cyberattacks,” the report’s co-ordinator and noted computer scientist Yoshua Bengio told AFP.
In the longer term, 2018 Turing Prize winner Bengio fears a possible “loss of control” by humans over AI systems, potentially motivated by “their own will to survive”.
“A lot of people thought that mastering language at the level of ChatGPT-4 was science fiction as recently as six years ago, and then it happened,” said Tegmark, referring to OpenAI’s chatbot.
“The big problem now is that a lot of people in power still have not understood that we’re closer to building artificial general intelligence (AGI) than to figuring out how to control it.”
Originally published as ‘Nicely done’: French President Emmanuel Macron reacts to fake AI videos
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