UK to Host World’s First AI Summit to Address Doomsday Risks

Britain will host the world’s first summit on synthetic intelligence later this 12 months, in a bid to dealer a standard method by international locations to restrict the expertise’s potential doomsday dangers whereas harnessing its potential, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak mentioned Wednesday.

“AI has an unbelievable potential to rework our lives for the higher. But we’d like to ensure that it’s developed and utilized in a method that’s secure and safe,” Sunak said in Washington ahead of White House talks with US President Joe Biden on Thursday.

“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.”

The summit is predicted to happen within the autumn and can collect “like-minded international locations” to shape a regulatory response, Sunak’s spokesman said, following a G7 call for action in Japan last month.

The spokesman denied that the summit was intended as a counterweight to efforts to exploit AI for authoritarian ends by the likes of China and Russia.

But while post-Brexit Britain looks also to host a future world regulator for AI, the United States and European Union are already forging ahead with their own direct dialogue on the rapidly evolving technology.

Sunak denied that the UK risked being squeezed out.

“I think we should have confidence in our country being a leader when it comes to AI because that’s what the facts demonstrate,” he instructed the BBC in Washington.

“If you take a look at the variety of corporations, the quantity invested, the standard of our analysis, apart from the US, there’s no different democratic nation that has that energy in AI.”

At 43, Sunak is nearly half the age of the 80-year-old Biden – but he denied that the US president was out of touch with the new technology, after one UK advisor warned it could wipe out humanity within two years.

“Well actually, we discussed artificial intelligence when we were in Japan together with the president (at the G7) and I know he is also aware of the challenges and opportunities that it poses,” Sunak instructed Britain’s TalkTV forward of their summit.

“But additionally I do know the president is considering the threats that our international locations face into the longer term and ensuring that we work collectively to defend our international locations in opposition to them,” he said, indicating US support for the upcoming UK summit.

(This story has not been edited by News18 staff and is published from a syndicated news agency feed – AFP)