AI Safety Summit 

The AI Safety Summit will take place on the 1st and 2nd November at Bletchley Park. It’ll be attended by countries that are leading the development of AI, as well as leading tech companies, academics, and thought leaders to direct national and international action around the frontier of Artificial Intelligence (AI) development.

The summit will focus on the risks created or intensified by the most powerful AI systems, particularly those associated with the potentially dangerous capabilities of these systems. The summit will also focus on how safe AI can be used for public good and to improve people’s lives – from lifesaving medical technology to safer transport.

The summit will look at a range of perspectives both prior to and at the event itself that will influence these discussions. The UK government has said already that it looks forward to working closely with its global partners to make frontier AI safe, and to ensure nations and citizens globally can realise its benefits, now and in the future. 

As part of what it hopes will be ‘an iterative and consultative process’, the UK has shared its five objectives. These develop the initial stakeholder consultation and evidence-gathering and will form the agenda at the summit:

• a shared understanding of the risks posed by frontier AI and the need for action;
• a forward process for international collaboration on frontier AI safety, including how best to support national and international frameworks;
• appropriate measures which individual organisations should take to increase frontier AI safety;
• areas for potential collaboration on AI safety research, including evaluating model capabilities and the development of new standards to support governance; and
• showcase how ensuring the safe development of AI will enable AI to be used for good globally.

The Government announcement around the summit says that accelerating AI investment, deployment and capabilities represents enormous opportunities for productivity and public good. New AI models with ever improving capabilities, along with big shifts in their accessibility and application are said to have created the prospect of up to $7 trillion in growth over the next 10 years and significantly faster drug discovery.

However, without appropriate guidance and restriction, this technology also poses risks in ways that do not respect national boundaries, and which we can only imagine. The need to address these at domestic as well as at international level is increasingly urgent and will form part of the summit conversations.

Individual countries, international organisations, businesses, academia, and civil society are already working on these issues and driving international collaboration on AI including at the UN, Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI), Council of Europe, G7, G20, and standard development organisations. 

The summit will aim to build on these important initiatives by agreeing the necessary next steps to address the risks frontier AI will bring.

You can find out more about the Summit: UK government sets out AI Safety Summit ambitions – GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)