After months of buildup, the world’s first AI Safety Summit came to a close yesterday after two days of discussions brokered by the UK and including representatives from leading AI companies, governments, and industry stakeholders.
One result to emerge from the summit was the signing of the so-called Bletchley Declaration, which saw 28 governments including China, the US, and EU agree to work together on AI safety. It was a positive outcome because it shows there is a global understanding that individual countries can not deal with the threat of AI in isolation, said University of Warwick Assistant Professor Shweta Singh, whose research includes ethical and responsible AI.
“To fight the risk from AI, it can only happen through collaboration, and not just collaboration between one or two countries, it has to be an international effort,” she said. “[The Declaration] is the first acknowledgement that this is the only way to actually fight the risks of AI and therefore mitigate those risks moving forward.”
However, the only actual agreement the declaration contains is the promise to keep talking, rather than a commitment to any overarching regulation — an issue where the divisions between nations appears to be the most stark.
The UK government is continuing to take a “wait and see” approach to regulation, arguing that with the current pace of development, it would be difficult to put forward legislation as it would likely be ineffective almost as soon as it was passed into law. Furthermore, much of the pre-summit talking points put forth by the UK focused on some of the more headlin-grabbing, existential threats, including AI’s possible ability to develop biological and chemical weapons — threats that even goverment officials had to admit were worst-case or highly unlikely scenarios.
On the contrary, the US AI Bill of Rights, an executive order signed by US President Joe Biden ahead of the summit on Monday, seeks to tackle the immediate risks presented by AI, such as bias, discrimination, and misinformation.
Addressing these issues at the US Embassy in London, Vice President Kamala Harris said that while existential threats such as AI-enabled cyberattacks and AI-formulated bio-weapons are profound and demand global action, there are additional problems that are currently causing harm and are already being seen by some as existential.
“When people around the world cannot discern fact from fiction because of a flood of AI-enabled mis- and disinformation… is that not existential for democracy?” Harris said. “To define AI safety, I offer that we must consider and address the full spectrum of AI risk — threats to humanity as a whole, as well as threats to individuals, communities, to our institutions, and to our most vulnerable populations.”
Singh said that while she can understand the wait-and-see argument being put forward by the UK government, that doesn’t mean that the country…
2023-11-05 10:41:02
Link from www.computerworld.com rnrn