On his eighth trip to France as India’s leader, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday donned an unusual role as co-chair of a major Artificial Intelligence summit alongside his host, the French president, Emmanuel Macron. At the summit, Mr Modi dismissed fears of AI taking away jobs, arguing that throughout history, technology had merely changed the nature of jobs. By reskilling workers, he argued, countries could prepare their labour forces for the disruption that AI is already bringing in industry after industry. In Paris, Mr Modi would have had the chance for bilateral talks with Mr Macron and meetings with business leaders. But the true significance of his visit lies in its timing: Mr Modi visited Europe at a time when the continent, like much of the world, is on edge over tariff threats levelled by Donald Trump, the president of the United States of America. Those threats are also part of a broader reordering of global rules that Mr Trump appears to be seeking — even if that places him at odds with close US allies and partners. That tension was on display at the AI summit. Mr Macron argued for strong regulations in the sector; Mr Modi also said AI needed global governance. But the US vice-president, J.D. Vance, pushed back against the need for regulations while insisting that Mr Trump’s administration would fight any ideological bias in AI algorithms.

These comments reflect the growing discord between the US and many other leading nations. When it comes to AI, for instance, there is more than enough evidence to suggest that algorithms by default carry the biases of those who design them and often end up discriminating against women, people of colour, and other minorities. Given Mr Trump’s moves to roll back affirmative action policies across the US government,
Mr Vance’s comments are ominous. Still, the France visit would have given Mr Modi a chance to map out a possible joint strategy with Mr Macron — who, like the Indian prime minister, has built a strong rapport with Mr Trump despite differences — to handle tensions with Washington. With many other world leaders also in Paris for the AI summit, Mr Modi would have had the opportunity to hear from them about how they plan to approach ties with Mr Trump. That can only have helped India in finessing its own plan ahead of Mr Modi’s next destination after Paris: the White House.