The US is working on a global artificial intelligence (ai) safety network
The Seoul summit on AI safety: Beyond the U.S., China, and Japan, and a message on the pace of change, risks and opportunities for AI
The Seoul summit on AI safety this week is cohosted by the UK government, which convened the first major international meeting on the topic last November. That summit culminated in more than 28 countries including the US, members of the EU, and China signing a declaration warning that artificial intelligence is advancing with such speed and uncertainty that it could cause “serious, even catastrophic, harm.”
Wang told reporters Monday that the agenda for this week’s gathering in the U.S. was expanded to include innovation and inclusion.
On Tuesday evening, South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are to meet other world leaders, industry leaders and heads of international organizations for a virtual conference. The online summit will be followed by an in-person meeting of digital ministers, experts and others on Wednesday, according to organizers.
“It is just six months since world leaders met at Bletchley, but even in this short space of time, the landscape of AI has changed dramatically,” Yoon and Sunak said in a joint article published in South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo newspaper and the U.K.’s online inews site on Monday. The pace of change will continue to accelerate, so we need to speed up our work too.
Wang said participants will subsequently “discuss not only the risks posed by AI but also its positive aspects and how it can contribute to humanity in a balanced manner.”
The U.K. Virtual Summit and Artificial Intelligence in the Shadow of China’s Influence on State and Foreign Policy: China is not preparing to participate
China doesn’t plan to participate in the virtual summit though it will send a representative to Wednesday’s in-person meeting, the South Korean presidential office said. China took part in the U.K. summit.
The US government has previously said advances in AI create national security risks, including the potential to automate or accelerate the development of bioweapons or to enable more damaging cyberattacks on critical infrastructure.
France has pledged to hold an in-person version of the meeting and the meeting has been billed as a mini virtual summit.
Developers of the most powerful artificial intelligence system are pooling their resources to set their own safety standards. Facebook parent company Meta Platforms and Amazon announced Monday they’re joining the Frontier Model Forum, a group founded last year by Anthropic, Google, Microsoft and OpenAI.
The US is seen as the leader in artificial intelligence due to companies like Openai and Meta. The US government wants help from other countries in managing the risks posed by technology.
The Commerce Department declined to comment on whether China had been invited to join the new AI safety network. Fears that China will use advanced AI to empower its military or threaten the US led first the Trump administration and now the Biden administration to roll out a series of restrictions on Chinese access to key technology.
