By Caribbean News Global 
ENGLAND / USA – As the world grapples with the challenges and opportunities presented by the rapid advancement of Artificial Intelligence, the UK will host the first major global summit on AI safety, prime minister Rishi Sunak announced Wednesday 7 June.
Breakthroughs from AI continue to improve our lives – from enabling paralysed people to walk to discovering superbug-killing antibiotics. But the development of AI is extraordinarily fast moving and this pace of change requires agile leadership. That is why the UK is taking action, because we have a global duty to ensure this technology is developed and adopted safely and responsibly, 10 Downing Street announced. Last week dozens of leading experts warned about the potential for AI to endanger humanity in similar ways to pandemics or nuclear weapons.
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In Washington DC, Wednesday, the prime minister stressed the importance of like-minded allies and companies working to develop an international framework to ensure the safe and reliable development and use of AI.
The summit, which will be hosted in the UK this autumn, will consider the risks of AI, including frontier systems, and discuss how they can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action. It will also provide a platform for countries to work together on further developing a shared approach to mitigate these risks, says the prime minister’s office.
“In recent weeks the prime minister has discussed this issue with a number of businesspeople and world leaders. This includes all members of the G7 who were united in their ambition to take a shared approach to this issue at the Hiroshima Summit last month.
“In May he also met the CEOs of the three most advanced frontier AI labs, OpenAI, DeepMind and Anthropic in Downing Street and the secretary of state for science, innovation and technology; and hosted a roundtable with senior AI leaders. The work at the AI safety summit will build on recent discussions at the G7, OECD and Global Partnership on AI.
“In July the foreign secretary will also convene the first-ever briefing of the UN Security Council on the opportunities and risks of Artificial Intelligence for international peace and security.”
The UK is well-placed to convene discussions on the future of AI. The UK is a world leader in AI – ranking third behind the US and China. AI sector already contributes £3.7 billion to the UK economy and employs 50,000 people across the country.
“Our departure from the EU also allows us to act more quickly and agilely in response to this rapidly changing market. The UK was one of the first leading nations to set out a blueprint for the safe and responsible development of AI, which will be adaptive to the speed of advances in this technology. And the UK has launched an expert task force to help build and adopt the next generation of safe AI, backed by £100 million of funding, alongside a commitment to spend £900 million developing compute capacity, including an exascale supercomputer in the UK.
The prime minister said:
“AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better. But we need to make sure it is developed and used in a way that is safe and secure. Time and time again throughout history we have invented paradigm-shifting new technologies and we have harnessed them for the good of humanity. That is what we must do again. No one country can do this alone. This is going to take a global effort. But with our vast expertise and commitment to an open, democratic international system, the UK will stand together with our allies to lead the way.”
