The world’s first-ever Artificial Intelligence Safety Summit was hosted at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire near London on November 1-2.
Bletchley Park holds a historical significance as it is considered one of the birthplaces of computer science and is renowned for its pivotal role in World War 2 code-breaking,
This summit drew in global leaders, computer scientists, and tech executives who began with a pioneering agreement on establishing ‘a shared understanding of the opportunities and the risks posed by Frontier AI’.
What is Frontier AI? It is a shorthand for the latest and the most powerful general-purpose systems that take the technology right up to its limits but could come with as-yet-unknown dangers.
It is a large-scale machine learning model that exceeds the capabilities currently present in the most advanced existing models and can perform a wide variety of tasks.
Twenty-eight countries including the United States, China, Japan, the United Kingdom, France, and India, plus the European Union, agreed to sign a declaration saying global action is needed to tackle the potential risks of AI.
The Bletchley Park declaration incorporates an acknowledgment of the substantial risks from potential intentional misuse or unintended issues of control of Frontier AI, especially cybersecurity, biotechnology, and disinformation risks.
The Declaration fulfills key summit objectives in establishing shared agreement and responsibility on the risks, opportunities, and a forward process for international collaboration on frontier AI safety and research particularly through great scientific collaboration.
It basically addresses two key categories of risk when it comes to AI: misuse and loss of control.
Misuse risks involve a bad actor being aided by new AI capabilities. For example, a cybercriminal could use AI to develop a new type of malware that cannot be detected by security researchers, or be used to help state actors develop dangerous bioweapons.
Loss of control risks refer to a situation in which the AI that humans create could be turned against them.
The UK Prime minister, in this summit, announced that the world’s first AI Safety Institute will be established in the UK, complimenting the existing international efforts including the G7, OECD, Council of Europe, United Nations, and the Global Partnership on AI.
The Declaration exclaims that the risks are ‘best addressed through international cooperation’. As part of agreeing to a forward process for international collaboration on frontier AI safety, the Republic of Korea has agreed to co-host a mini-virtual summit on AI in the next six months. France will then host the next in-person summit in a year from now.
India’s position: India has been progressively pushing the envelope on AI regulation. On August 29, less than two weeks before the G20 Leaders’ Summit in New Delhi, Prime Minister Narendra Modi called for a global framework for the expansion of ethical AI tools.
This statement marked the shift in India’s position from not considering any legal intervention on regulating AI to a move in the direction of actively formulating regulations based on the risk-based, user-harm approach.
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