MILTON KEYNES, UK

The first-ever global artificial intelligence safety summit kicked off in the UK on Wednesday.

Organized by the UK government, the summit is being held under strict security measures in Bletchley Park near the city of Milton Keynes, as technology ministers from many countries are discussing the advantages of AI, including transformational and advancing drug discovery, safer and cleaner transport, improving public services, as well as speeding up and improving diagnosis and treatment of diseases.

The AI safety summit “will focus on how to best manage the risks from the most recent advances in AI,” according to a UK government statement.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has laid out the summit’s aims as agreeing on the risks of AI and informing how they can be managed, a better international collaboration, and how safe AI can be used for good in global scale.

Sunak said that he will be joining world representatives and business leaders “to drive these important talks forward.”

“We’ll be discussing what the next five years look like for AI, and the action we’ll need to take to ensure it’s developed safely, both in the short and long term,” he added.

Opening remarks

Michelle Donelan, British secretary of state for science, innovation and technology, said in her opening speech of the summit that the world was surprised by the progress seen in the AI field.

She said that AI systems, which have been widely adopted across the world, “could breed people everywhere from tedious work and amplify our creative abilities.”

She argued that it could help scientists in new discoveries, “opening the door to a world potentially about diseases like cancer and with access to near limitless clean energy.”

She further said: “But they could also further concentrate unaccountable power into the hands of a few or maliciously use to undermine society, erode public safety, or threaten international security.”

The British secretary also underlined that it should be remembered that “AI is not some natural phenomenon that’s happening to us, but it is a product of human creation that we have the power to shape and direct.”

“And today, we will help define the trajectory of this technology to ensure public safety and that humanity flourishes in the years to come,” she added.

The summit will discuss the AI safety, including the risks to global safety and security risks from unpredictable advances from loss of control and the integration of this technology within our societies, Donelan added.

The second and third AI safety summits will be held in South Korea in six months’ time and then in France in one year’s time, she also said.

King Charles III

Connecting to the summit via video link, UK’s King Charles III said the “rapid rise of powerful artificial intelligence is considered by many of the greatest thinkers of our age to be no less significant, no less important than the discovery of electricity, the splitting of the atom, the creation of the worldwide web, or even the harnessing of fire.”

He continued: “AI holds the potential to completely transform life as we know it helps us better treat and perhaps even cure conditions like cancer, heart disease, and Alzheimer’s (disease).”

The king added: “However, if we are to realize the untold benefits, then we must work together on combating its significant risks to AI continues to advance with ever greater speed towards models that somebody could surpass human abilities even human understanding. There is a clear imperative to ensure that this rapidly evolving technology remains safe and secure.”

Declaration

A declaration signed by 28 countries said cooperation and agenda for addressing frontier AI risk will focus on “identifying AI safety risks of shared concern, building a shared scientific and evidence-based understanding of these risks, and sustaining that understanding as capabilities continue to increase in the context of a wider global approach to understanding the impact of AI in our societies.”

It said the focus will also be on “building respective risk-based policies across our countries to ensure safety in light of such risks, collaborating as appropriate while recognizing our approaches may differ based on national circumstances and applicable legal frameworks.

“This includes, alongside increased transparency by private actors developing frontier AI capabilities, appropriate evaluation metrics, tools for safety testing, and developing-relevant public sector capability and scientific research.”