Britain on Wednesday published a “Bletchley Declaration,” agreed with countries, including the United States and China, to boost global efforts to cooperate on artificial intelligence (AI) safety. The document, signed by 28 countries and the European Union, was published on the opening day of the AI Safety Summit hosted at Bletchley Park, central England, the home of Second World War codebreaker Alan Turing. It says governments, international fora and other initiatives, industry, and civil society must work together.
It also outlines principles to ensure the safe development and use of AI. It emphasizes transparency, research, and a shared understanding of risks. It calls for international cooperation and avoiding protectionism, which it considers harmful.
The declaration aims to prevent the creation of new and powerful AI technologies that are potentially insecure, unreliable, or difficult to control. It identifies potential risks to human and machine safety, such as data privacy breaches, discrimination, and the proliferation of weapons-grade AI, which terrorists could use to cause harm or fear. It also warns of the need to avoid creating “AI monopolies” or other forms of excessive concentration of power.
Technology companies and researchers will meet on Wednesday and Thursday to discuss how to harness the power of AI while mitigating its risks. The US, France, and China are the 27 governments whose representatives will attend. Downing Street has been forced to defend the decision to invite Chinese tech minister Wu Zhaohui amid concerns from hawkish Tory MPs.
Amid the flurry of activity around the two-day summit, Britain’s Digital Secretary Rishi Sunak warned that the UK had a “critical role to play” in developing a long-term international strategy for AI governance. But he said the country must resist a temptation to regulate the technology through legislation that would stifle innovation.
The UK government plans to hold additional international summits next year in South Korea and France. It also wants to host an in-person summit with US Vice President Kamala Harris and billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk, the CEO of SpaceX, Tesla, and X owner Meta and founder of chat app maker ChatGPT.
The US and the UK will continue to hold bilateral meetings on AI, and there are plans for an international conference in 2025 to review progress and a further summit to decide how to address the most significant gaps, officials say. The UK will also seek to promote an open-source standard for AI, as well as a global network of labs and data centers to help develop best practices and foster collaboration. The UK has been a leader in AI research and innovation. Still, it needs to take a problem-solving role in the international effort on governance, the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport said in a statement. It is also keen to encourage greater uptake of AI by small and medium-sized businesses, which are reluctant to invest because of safety concerns. A survey by the Data and Marketing Association found that 43% of its members don’t plan to innovate with the technology in the next 12 months because of these concerns.
