Two days of talks on AI safety, innovation and inclusivity in
Seoul next week are expected to be a pivotal gathering of
nations, companies and civil society for negotiations on AI. The
talks are the next in the series following the successful
Bletchley Park summit in November last year and are co-hosted by
the UK government and Republic of Korea in Seoul.
Similar numbers are expected for Seoul including participants
from governments, academia and civil society. Companies due to
participate include Anthropic, Microsoft, Mistral, Google
DeepMind, OpenAI and Samsung.
On Tuesday, will co-host a virtual session
of world leaders and tech bosses with President Yoon Suk Yeol of
the Republic of Korea on safety, innovation and inclusivity, as
well as taking stock of commitments made at Bletchley.
He is expected to say:
“To unlock the benefits of AI, we must also work together to
ensure it is safe. Because safe AI is innovative AI.
“We made history with the Bletchley Park Summit at the end of
last year. Together, we committed to build a consensus on
the risks of AI to develop an independent, international AI
safety report and to take greater action to counter the frontier
risks.
“…managing the risks of AI is one of the most profound
responsibilities we face. Because if we get it right, it will
also create the most profound opportunities for human progress
that we have seen in our lifetimes.”
Tech Secretary is flying out to team up
with her Korean counterpart H.E. Lee Jong Ho for an in-person
gathering of global tech & digital ministers and senior
officials for talks focused on AI safety, sustainability and
resilience.
The talks will see British officials put forward proposals for
further safety commitments with the major companies, building on
those made at Bletchley.
After the UK led the way with the world's first-of-a-kind AI
Safety Institute, which is backed by £100m in funding and has
already agreed a landmark deal to work in unison with its US
counterpart, a raft of new international collaborations are also
expected - kickstarting a global movement as key nations look to
follow suit. Last year the UK was the first country to
launch an AI Safety Institute. Since then the US, Japan,
Singapore and others have followed suit.
The government will use the summit as the next step in its plan
to harness the immense opportunities of AI to boost productivity
and grow the economy. In the week that statistics showed the
economy grew 0.6 percent in the first quarter of this year UK
company Wayve secured over $1 billion to develop the next
generation of AI-powered self-driving cars, and London-based
CoreWeave announced a £1 billion investment in the UK.
A Whitehall source said: “Britain continues to show global
leadership on one of the defining technological and societal
challenges of our age. Just this week, we saw new models launch
that can identify emotions from visual expressions, create
computer-generated footage based only on written prompts and even
flirt. But managed safely, AI will continue improving our quality
of life and growing our economy, just as we saw the other week
with £2 billion of investment from just two AI companies alone.
Safety is a joint, international venture and one that the UK
kicked off with Bletchley – Seoul is the next step before the
French summit next year.”
