AI Safety Summit adopts declaration on addressing AI risks

[Photo by AFP Yonhap]

Major countries, including the United States, China, and the United Kingdom, pledged Wednesday to jointly address the risks associated with artificial intelligence (AI) amid an intensifying competition for AI dominance.

At the inaugural AI Safety Summit held at Bletchley Park in the United Kingdom on Wednesday, local time, the 28 participating countries, including South Korea, unveiled the Bletchley Declaration that focuses on AI technology safety.

“AI presents enormous global opportunities: it has the potential to transform and enhance human wellbeing, peace and prosperity,” the Declaration said. “To realise this, we affirm that, for the good of all, AI should be designed, developed, deployed, and used in a manner that is safe, in such a way as to be human-centric, trustworthy and responsible.”

This marks the first formal commitment by major countries to address AI’s potential for serious harm.

“Many risks arising from AI are inherently international in nature, and so are best addressed through international cooperation,” the countries said. “We resolve to work together in an inclusive manner to ensure human-centric, trustworthy and responsible AI that is safe, and supports the good of all through existing international fora and other relevant initiatives.”

The declaration includes international cooperation policies aimed at addressing existential risks associated with frontier AI, high-performance general models, such as defining appropriate evaluation metrics for AI, developing tools for safety testing, identifying, and building a scientific understanding of high-performance AI Risks.

“This is a landmark achievement that sees the world’s greatest AI powers agree on the urgency behind understanding the risks of AI – helping ensure the long-term future of our children and grandchildren,” U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.

Meanwhile, Korea agreed to host a mini virtual summit on AI in May 2024, where follow-up actions for the declaration will be raised. The second summit will be held in France a year later.

“Korea is a world leader in technologies like AI and recognizes the importance of multilateral cooperation to ensure AI technologies are designed, used and governed in safe ways,” a spokesperson for the Korean government said.

While there was positive assessment that the joint declaration involving the United States and China would become the starting point for international cooperation in the absence of global standards for AI regulation, some critics argue that it is merely a non-binding declaration. But U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo shared plans at the summit that the U.S. will launch an AI safety institute.

The institute “will facilitate the development of standards for safety, security, and testing of AI models, develop standards for authenticating AI-generated content, and provide testing environments for researchers to evaluate emerging AI risks and address known impacts,” the department said.

“China is actively strengthening dialogue and communication with all sectors on AI safety and is prepared to cooperate in building an international governance framework,” according to Wu Zhaojui, vice minister of China’s Ministry of Science and Technology.

Wu, however, underscored that “all countries have equal rights to develop and use AI regardless of their size.”

U.S. President Joe Biden also signed an AI executive order before the AI summit, which is interpreted as a declaration of the United States’ determination to assert its leadership in AI regulation.

The U.S. IT industry previously noted that while the United States has been moving slow in terms of regulation, European AI regulations are becoming the benchmark for application in other countries.

The EU is pursuing the enactment of AI intelligence laws to address legal and ethical risks associated with AI. For its part, the United States is strengthening cooperation with key countries, including Korea, to assert its leadership in AI regulatory governance.

Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol attended the AI Safety Summit virtually from his residence in Hannam-dong, central Seoul, and discussed global cooperation measures for the safe use and governance of AI.

“The emergence of generative AI, such as ChatGPT, has enhanced our quality of life and increased industrial productivity,” he said. “However, the digital divide can worsen economic disparities, and the proliferation of fake news can undermine our freedom and threaten democratic systems, such as elections.”