“It will be much smarter than the smartest person”
The UK, USA, EU and China signed a declaration on the “catastrophic” danger of artificial intelligence. However, the communique from the Bletchley summit in the UK did not contain agreement to create a testing center in the UK, as some in the UK government had hoped.
China, UK, US, EU and Australia agreed that artificial intelligence poses a potentially catastrophic risk to humanity, in the first international declaration dedicated to rapidly developing technology.
According to The Guardian, twenty-eight governments signed the so-called Bletchley Declaration on the first day of an artificial intelligence security summit organized by the British government. The countries have agreed to work together on research into the safety of artificial intelligence, even as there are signs that the US and UK are competing for leadership in developing new rules.
Rishi Sunak welcomed the announcement, calling it «absolutely incredible.»
Speaking ahead of his own summit appearance on Thursday, the Prime Minister added: «Nothing will change the future of our children and grandchildren like technology advances such as artificial intelligence. We owe it to them to ensure the safe and responsible development of artificial intelligence, recognizing the risks it poses early in the process.
Michelle Donelan, the UK's technology minister, told reporters: «For the first time, countries have agreed that we need to not only independently but collectively look at the risks posed by edge AI.»
As The Guardian explains, Frontier AI is among the most advanced systems that, according to some experts, can become more intelligent than humans in solving a range of problems. Speaking to the PA news agency on the sidelines of the summit, Elon Musk, owner of Tesla and SpaceX, as well as Platform X, warned: “For the first time, we are faced with a situation where there is something that is much smarter than the smartest person….”
Donelan opened the summit by telling her fellow participants that the development of artificial intelligence “cannot be left to chance, neglected or entrusted only to private actors.” She was joined on stage by US Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo and Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Wu Zhaohui, in a rare display of global unity.
Matt Clifford, one of the British officials responsible for organizing the summit, called Raimondo's appearance and Wu together on stage for a “wonderful moment”.
China signed a declaration that included the sentence: “We welcome the efforts of the international community to cooperate in the field of artificial intelligence to promote inclusive economic growth, sustainable development and innovation, protect human rights and fundamental freedoms, and strengthen public confidence in artificial intelligence systems for full realizing their potential.”
Wu told fellow delegates: “We are committed to the principles of mutual respect, equality and mutual benefit. Countries, regardless of their size and scale, have equal rights to the development and use of artificial intelligence.
But there is so far little international agreement on what a global set of AI rules might look like or who should write them.
Some British officials had hoped other countries would agree to strengthen the government's AI task force , so that it can be used to test new models from around the world before they are introduced to the general public.
Instead, Raimondo used the summit to announce a separate US Institute for Artificial Intelligence Safety within the country's National Institute of Standards and Technology, which she called «a neutral third party to develop best-in-class standards,» adding that the institute would develop its own safety rules and testing.
Earlier this week, the Biden administration issued an executive order requiring US artificial intelligence companies such as OpenAI and Google to share the results of their safety tests with the government before releasing artificial intelligence models.
Then Vice -President Kamala Harris gave a speech on artificial intelligence in London, in which she spoke about the importance of regulating existing models of artificial intelligence, as well as more advanced ones in the future.
Clifford denied any suggestions of a rift between the US and UK on the issue about which country should take global leadership in regulating artificial intelligence.
“You may have heard Secretary Raimondo really praise us at the top of her lungs and talk about the partnership she wants to establish between Great Britain and the US Security Institute,” he said. “I really think it shows the depth of the partnership.”
The EU is in the process of passing an artificial intelligence bill, which aims to develop a set of regulatory principles, as well as introduce rules for specific technologies such as facial recognition in real time.