Top line
World leaders from government, technology, civil society and academia will gather in Britain on Wednesday and Thursday for a historic summit on artificial intelligence, amid growing concern over the security of this rapidly evolving technology as it rapidly outpaces efforts to regulate it.
Elon Musk will join technology and government leaders at Bletchley Park this week.
Highlights
Billionaire Elon Musk is expected to attend the two-day summit and will host a live chat with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on his X Platform once it concludes on Thursday, Sunak. confirmed Monday.
Musk will join executives from some of the world’s largest AI companies and confirmed guests include Demis Hassabis, CEO of Google DeepMind, Sam Altman, who runs OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT, and Dario Amodei, CEO and co- founder of Anthropic, as well as that of Palantir Alex Karpthat of Cohere Aidan Gomez And Stability AI Emad Mostaque.
Other tech titans are also expected to be well represented, with Microsoft sending its political chief Brad Smith, Google its technology and society chief. James Manyika and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta on both his AI and politics heads Yann LeCun, considered one of the three “godfathers” of modern AI, and Nick Clegg, also former British Deputy Prime Minister.
Experts who would be present include respected academics like Geoffrey Hinton, Yoshua Bengio – who complete the trio of “godfathers” of modern AI and have warned that AI could drive humans to extinction – and Stuart Russell and representatives of groups studying AI risks such as Future of Life Institute and the Alan Turing Institute.
Relatively few government leaders invited by Sunak are reported accept his offer – Italy’s Giorgia Meloni and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen are notable exceptions (as is Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu) and UN chief Antonio Guterres is also expected to attend – but they send delegates, with China, Canada and France. and Germany have all indicated that they will send civil servants of varying seniority.
Vice President Kamala Harris will represent the United States at the summit and will deliver a “major policy speech” in London on Wednesday outlining the administration’s “vision for the future of AI.”
What we don’t know
The organizers have suggested the event will host approximately 100 people, although the full guest list has not been made public and many guests have been determined by statements that they plan to attend. The full list of participants will become visible as the summit progresses. The summit takes place at Bletchley Park, Milton Keynes, where British codebreakers, including AI pioneer Alan Turing, helped crack Nazi codes. Police have put airspace restrictions in place over the site in anticipation of a visit from “dignitaries and leaders from around the world”, according to Thames Valley Police. said.
To monitor
Sunak said he hoped the summit would spark a global conversation about the future of AI and how to regulate it. The top agenda details a series of panel discussions focused on the threats posed by specific areas of AI, such as how it can be misused, create biosecurity and cybersecurity risks, how it will be integrated into society and what would happen if we lost control of AI. AI. The emphasis appears to be largely oriented towards more apocalyptic, the existential risks of AI rather than the risks that already exist today. Sunak hopes it will be the first in a regular series of AI summits in the vein of the G7 and G20 meetings and UK officials. hope they might be able to secure political commitments to mitigate AI risks or sign a joint declaration proclaiming the need for action.
Tangent
Amid disappointing turnout among world leaders, Downing Street insisted the event is not shunned and says it is satisfied with the responses it received. The decision to invite China, which would have been extended to President Xi Jinping himself – proved particularly controversial among Sunak’s conservative lawmakers, who argue Beijing abuses technology. China is one of the undisputed leaders in AI and Downing Street has pushed back against criticism and insisted it was right for China to be invited to a global summit on AI governance .
Further reading
Can Rishi Sunak’s big summit save us from the AI nightmare? (BBC)
White House unveils ‘radical’ AI strategy as Biden pushes for transparency, security (Forbes)