Global leaders convened in the UK for a summit regarding artificial intelligence amid warnings that the technology can potentially cause "catastrophic" harm.
The event was attended by 28 governments, including China and the United States, that signed a declaration agreeing to cooperate in evaluating the risks of AI. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak is hopeful that Britain's AI Safety Summit will position his country as a leader in the global race to harness and regulate artificial intelligence.
UK AI Summit
Sunak's government on Wednesday morning released a document called the Bletchley Declaration. It was signed by representatives from the 28 countries that attended the event and warned of the dangers posed by the most advanced "frontier" AI systems.
The declaration said that there is potential for serious, even catastrophic, harm, either deliberate or unintentional. It argued that this stems from the most significant capabilities of the artificial intelligence models currently available, as per the New York Times.
It argues that there are many risks arising from AI that are inherently international, arguing that they are best addressed through international cooperation. The declaration said that they can resolve to work together inclusively to ensure human-centric, trustworthy, and responsible AI.
However, the document fell short of setting specific policy goals, and a second meeting is scheduled in six months in South Korea, while a third is set to be held in France in a year. Global governments have struggled to address the risks posed by the fast-evolving technology since the release of OpenAI's ChatGPT last year.
This was a humanlike chatbot that demonstrated how the latest models of artificial intelligence systems are advancing in powerful and unpredictable ways. While experts believe that AI systems have plenty of benefits, they also have the capability of presenting significant dangers in terms of job losses, disinformation, and national security.
Before the UK AI summit, Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who also attended the event, said that he believes AI could lead to humanity's extinction. Despite his remarks, he did not provide further details on how that could happen in real life, according to BBC.
Addressing the Risks Posed by AI
Several others also warned against speculating about unlikely future threats and said that the world should instead focus on the potential that present-day risks AI poses. King Charles also called the development of advanced AI "no less important than the discovery of electricity."
The Royal said that tackling the risks of AI would need to involve conversations across societies, governments, civil society, and the private sector. Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan said this is an important moment because no single country can face the challenges and risks that AI poses.
The summit comes as Sunak is seeking to boost investment from large tech firms in the UK while also trying to convince civil society groups that he is paying enough attention to the labor displacement risk that AI poses.
There were more than 100 organizations, including the Trades Union Congress, Connected by Data, and Open Rights Group, that signed a letter to the PM ahead of the summit. They said that the "closed door event" was dominated by Big Tech firms and that it "squeezed out" small businesses and artists, said CNBC.
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