- Deputy PM to use UNGA speech to call for global cooperation
on AI safety
- Will warn that failure to act threatens global order as
Artificial Intelligence development outpaces government ability
to regulate it
The international community needs to take action to make AI safe,
or allow it to destabilise world order, Deputy Prime Minister
will warn the UN today
(Friday).
In a speech to the 193 nations present at the UN General
Assembly, Dowden will welcome the huge potential of AI in areas
like tackling diseases and fighting climate change, but warn that
the pace of its development threatens to outstrip any
government’s ability to regulate it:
“The starting gun has been fired on a globally competitive
race in which individual companies as well as countries will
strive to push the boundaries as far and fast as possible.
“In the past, leaders have responded to scientific and
technological developments with retrospective regulation. But in
this instance the necessary guardrails, regulation and governance
must be developed in a parallel process with the technological
progress. Yet, at the moment, global regulation is falling behind
current advances.”
With most of the development of AI in the hands of tech
companies, rather than governments, he will call for “a new
form of multilateralism” to regulate AI:
“In fact, because tech companies and non-state actors often
have country-sized influence and prominence in AI, this challenge
requires a new form of multilateralism.
“Tech companies must not mark their own homework, just as
governments and citizens must have confidence that risks are
properly mitigated. Indeed, a large part of this work should be
about ensuring faith in the system and only nation states can
provide reassurance that the most significant national security
concerns have been allayed.”
As the UK prepares to host the first AI Safety Summit in
November, he will also call on countries not to “become
trapped in debates about whether it is a tool for good or a tool
for ill; it will be a tool for both.”
The speech follows a number of meetings in New York and
Washington on AI, Including hosting a Ministerial Session on AI
safety risks this morning – attended by digital ministers from
countries including Japan, the USA, Pakistan and Canada.
Dowden also spoke at the Global Emerging Technology Summit in
Washington yesterday (Thursday), alongside senior DC politicians
and officials including Chairs of House Committees,
Technology Ministers from Japan and Singapore and senior White
House officials.
