The UK will bring together political leaders, technology representatives and researchers on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss the meteoric rise of artificial intelligence (AI) at a first summit dedicated to the fears raised by this technological revolution.
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Job destruction, cyberattacks and even loss of human control… Faced with the potential dangers of AI, the British government wants to open dialogue at this meeting in Milton Keynes, north of London.
The UK aim is at least to achieve a “common understanding of risks” in the absence of agreed policy.
British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak wants to present the “first international statement on the nature” of the risks of AI and proposes setting up a group of international experts based on the IPCC climate model.
Ahead of the meeting, the G7 countries agreed on Monday in Japan on a non-binding “code of conduct” for companies that develop the most advanced AI systems.
Among other things, London does not want to “rush” the regulation of this technology, while the European Union hopes to complete the first regulation of these innovations before the end of 2023.
In the US, Joe Biden will announce a series of measures to regulate AI on Monday.
Technological revolution
The location of the summit was not chosen by chance: Bletchley Park Manor is the iconic World War II code-breaking center where mathematician Alan Turing managed to crack the code of the Enigma machine used by the Nazis.
From smartphones to airports, AI is already ubiquitous in everyday life. Its progress has accelerated in recent years with the development of generative AI, such as the ChatGTP conversation robot, capable of producing text, sounds and images in just a few seconds.
There are great hopes for the potential of AI, especially for medicine. But in addition to destroying thousands of jobs, the unbridled development of this technology could also be the source of cyberattacks and disinformation or even enable the “production of chemical or biological weapons,” fears Rishi Sunak, refuting any alarmism.
The challenge for authorities is to avoid these excesses without missing the train of this technology. At their meeting in Rome on Monday, French and German Economy Ministers Bruno Le Maire and Robert Haneck, as well as Italian Economy Minister Adolfo Urso, argued for an “innovation-promoting” approach in the European Union that requires greater investment.
Following the initiative of the Bletchley Park Summit, the UK aims to be the driving force of international cooperation in the field of artificial intelligence. However, it remains to be seen which heads of state will make the trip in the midst of the war between Israel and Hamas.
Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres are expected. The United States is represented by Vice President Kamala Harris.
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni is the only G7 leader to have confirmed her presence.
“Missed opportunity”
Despite tensions and fears of technological espionage, Beijing will be represented, even if we don’t know exactly at what level.
Rishi Sunak said there can be no “serious strategy for AI without at least trying to include all major world powers”.
Around a hundred international organizations, experts and activists published an open letter to the British prime minister on Monday, calling this closed-door summit a “missed opportunity” and accusing it of being dominated by tech giants.
This coalition of trade unions, scientists and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International also deplored the British government’s disastrous actions to the detriment of the threats that AI already poses “here and now”.
Among other things, experts point to the lack of transparency in the models developed by companies and their bias in terms of race or gender.
For Hamed Haddadi, professor in the computer science department at Imperial College, it is definitely time to “have this dialogue”: “Do we need regulation, or should we let the market and companies take care of it and see?” What happens ?’, asked he.