The UK held an international summit on the safety of developing artificial intelligence (AI) systems last week.
The event took place at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes – once the home of World War II codebreakers and the influential Colossus computer system.
A total of 29 countries, including the UK, US, China, Japan, Korea, Saudi Arabia, France and Germany, signed The Bletchley Declaration, a voluntary document that aims to address the potential risks posed by AI.
The two main areas covered by the Declaration were:
- Identifying AI risks and building a “shared scientific and evidence-based understanding of these risks.”
- Constructing policies within the individual nations in light of such risks and “collaborating as appropriate” while recognising that different countries’ approaches may vary.
A number of tech firms also agreed to allow governments to safety-test new generations of AI models before deploying them.
While the US was a signatory to the document and US vice-president Kamala Harris made a speech on the opening day of the summit, President Joe Biden did not attend.
The US also underlined its own agenda-setting power as Biden issued an executive order requiring tech firms operating in the country to submit test results to the government.
Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk talked before an industry audience
Despite the Accord and other elements of the two-day event, the biggest headline-grabber was undoubtedly Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s 50-minute interview with entrepreneur Elon Musk.
During the interview, Musk described AI as “the most disruptive force in history”, suggesting that the technology would essentially be able to do everything a human can.
This meant that there would come a point where “no job is needed”, and people would only have to work for “personal satisfaction”.
Shortly after the summit, Musk announced that his own artificial intelligence startup, xAI, would finally release its first model to a select group, describing it as the best that currently exists “in some important respects”.
Sunak said that he hoped the summit would prove to be the first in a regular series, with France and Korea expressing an interest in hosting future events.
Speaking after the event, Sunak also said that the government’s job was to make sure that there was a “world-class” education system in place to enable people to face the challenges and make the best of opportunities afforded by AI.
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