UK PM Sunak announces first global summit on AI

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced that the United Kingdom will hold the first worldwide summit on artificial intelligence (AI) this September.

Mr Sunak declared last week, while on a trip to the United States, that government officials and tech businesses will meet to agree safety measures to evaluate and monitor the most significant risks from AI.

Mr Sunak said: “AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better. But we need to make sure it is developed and used in a way that is safe and secure.

“Time and time again throughout history, we have invented paradigm-shifting new technologies and we have harnessed them for the good of humanity. That is what we must do again.”

“No one country can do this alone. This is going to take a global effort. But with our vast expertise and commitment to an open, democratic international system, the UK will stand together with our allies to lead the way,” he added.

In May, dozens of AI experts signed a letter, organised by the Center for AI Safety, calling for leaders to work to “reduce societal-scale risks from AI”.

Among the signatories was the “godfather of AI”, Geoffrey Hinton, who resigned from his Google job and warned of the dangers of AI technology.

AI could transform our lives for the better if used safely and securely.

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No one country can do this alone – it’ll take a global effort.

But with our expertise and commitment to an open, democratic international system, the UK will stand together with our allies to lead the way.

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) June 8, 2023

Sam Altman and Ilya Sutskever, the chief executive and co-founder respectively of ChatGPT developer OpenAI, also signed the letter.

The Prime Minister responded by saying he had “stressed to AI companies the importance of putting guardrails in place so development is safe and secure,” at a roundtable with AI leaders.

Government ministers and advisors have previously warned of the dangers of AI.

Matt Clifford, Sunak’s adviser on the technology, warned that AI could be capable of creating technology that could kill people in just two years.

Ahead of the summit in the autumn, foreign secretary James Cleverly will convene the first briefing of the UN Security Council on “the opportunities and risks of Artificial Intelligence for international peace and security,” in July.

The UK is a world-leader in AI, just behind the US and China, with the sector contributing £3.7 billion to the economy.

Meanwhile, the EU is preparing to pass flagship rules to regulate the use of AI tools which will classify the tech into three risk categories.