A new international committee, inspired by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), will monitor advances in artificial intelligence (AI) to ensure the safety of this new technology, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced Thursday.
Speaking at a press conference at the conclusion of the Global Security Summit on AI at Bletchley Park, Sunak said that “the whole international community has agreed” and has the support of UN Secretary-General António Guterres, who was present at the meeting.
The 28 countries attending the summit, including the United States and China, as well as European countries such as Germany, France and Spain, pledged to “nominate experts.”
The group will regularly publish a report on the state of development of artificial intelligence.
Canadian scientist Yoshua Bengio, a member of the UN’s Scientific Advisory Committee and a Turing Prize winner for his work on deep neural networks, will chair the group that will prepare the first annual document.
The British leader, who hosted the first global AI summit, explained that “like-minded countries” attended the meeting and technology companies also agreed to create mechanisms to test future artificial intelligence systems.
“Until now, the only people testing the safety of new AI models have been the very companies developing them. That must change,” said Sunak, who noted that authorities will be able to evaluate systems before they are deployed.
“We must ensure that our shared understanding keeps pace with the rapid adoption and development of AI,” the prime minister added.
Sunak also asserted that despite the dangers associated with the technology, it is a tool that can help everyone do their jobs better and faster.
Although the Bletchley Park summit did not attract world leaders such as the President of the United States, Joe Biden, or the majority of European leaders, Sunak defended its success to the press.
In particular, he noted that Washington and Beijing, rival powers, agreed in the joint statement released on the first day of the meeting, in which participants warned of the potentially “catastrophic” threats posed by AI and opted to coordinate an international response.
“Some said, we shouldn’t even invite China, others that we could never get an agreement with them. Both were wrong. A serious strategy for AI safety has to begin with engaging all the world’s leading AI powers,” he noted.
“I can’t predict the future and exactly how this will all play out, but it would have been a mistake not to try,” he added.
By Usmana Kousar
