Macron and South Korean President Target AI Risks and Tech Scraping at Lumière Summit

French President Emmanuel Macron and South Korean President Lee Jae Myung convened international media and technology executives this week to address the growing impact of artificial intelligence and streaming services on the global film sector. The gathering, titled the Lumière summit, brought together more than 200 representatives from international entertainment and technology entities to discuss structural shifts in media consumption and emerging policy issues surrounding generative AI.

During the summit's discussions, political leaders urged global technology providers to establish strict ethical boundaries around generative systems that utilize proprietary creative assets. "We would be making a tremendous mistake if this technology became a tool that replaces, or claims to replace, creators," Macron said. President Lee emphasized that artificial intelligence must develop in "a more responsible and human-centered way," stating that "the film and audiovisual industry must be rooted in human creativity and must resonate with human emotions."

To bolster independent creators against market pressures from digital platforms and automated tools, the two nations committed to a joint 1 billion euro ($1.15 billion) investment initiative. Half of the capital will be supplied by French state investment bank Bpifrance, while South Korea will fund the remaining half. "May this partnership transcend our bilateral relationship and reach across the globe," Lee said. Additionally, Macron announced a separate 30 million euro organization designed to directly support independent cinematic works.

The conference underscored rising tensions between legacy content owners and internet platforms over data scraping for machine learning models, as first reported by TechXplore. While legacy Hollywood entities such as Sony Pictures and Disney attended alongside digital platforms Netflix and TikTok, major technology firms including YouTube and Instagram parent Meta declined invitations to participate.

Industry representatives criticized absent platform operators over allegations that copyrighted film and television catalogs are being harvested without authorization to train commercial AI systems. "The elephant in the room is really YouTube," said TF1 chief executive Rodolphe Belmer. Gaëtan Bruel, head of France's National Cinema Centre (CNC), which helped organize the summit, called for "concrete measures," acknowledging it was impossible "to solve every problem in a single day." Bruel advocated for "a new multilateralism" across the tech and entertainment sectors, asserting "that means tackling these issues using the same approach that was applied to climate change."

Hosted at the Maeght Foundation for contemporary art in Saint-Paul-de-Vence near Nice, the conference included actor George Clooney, Cannes jury chair Park Chan-wook, and Oscar-winning director Bong Joon-ho. Filmmakers Pedro Almodóvar and Juliette Binoche joined the event remotely. The conference was named after Auguste and Louis Lumière, the French brothers credited with inventing modern motion pictures.

Despite regulatory friction with big tech platforms, organizers pointed to signs of recovery in traditional theatrical distribution. Cannes Film Festival director Thierry Frémaux praised the initiative, noting that "the value of this summit lies in creating that meeting place, where the format itself helps drive the discussion." Frémaux added that theatrical attendance has rebounded from pandemic lows, observing that "during the pandemic, people got used to watching films at home and wondered whether cinemas were still necessary," but noted that "audiences have come back, and younger viewers are returning to the cinema."