Korea, Britain to co-host global AI safety summit this week

Korea and Britain will co-host a global AI safety summit in Seoul this week, bringing together world leaders to address the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), buttressed by the need for innovation and inclusivity.

A banner is seen for the upcoming AI Seoul Summit and AI Global Forum in Seoul Monday. Korea and Britain are set to host the summit on Tuesday on risks and regulation of artificial intelligence, following up on the inaugural meeting held in England last November. [AP/YONHAP]

Korea and Britain will co-host a global AI safety summit in Seoul this week, bringing together world leaders to address the risks posed by artificial intelligence (AI), buttressed by the need for innovation and inclusivity.

The two-day AI Seoul Summit kicks off on Tuesday, where heads of major countries and global tech industry representatives will address the theme of "Building on the AI Safety Summit: Towards an innovative and inclusive future."

The inaugural AI Safety Summit was held in Bletchley Park in England last November, and Seoul is holding the second gathering of its kind.

Wang Yun-jong, the third deputy national security adviser, said in a press briefing at the Yongsan presidential office Monday that while the inaugural summit in Britain focused on AI safety, "this year's summit will expand the agenda to include innovation and inclusivity, on top of safety," and that participants will discuss "not only the risks posed by AI, but also its positive aspects and how AI can contribute to humanity."

The forum will be comprised of a virtual leaders' summit on the first day and a ministerial meeting, followed by an AI Global Forum involving key industry and academia leaders on Wednesday.

On Tuesday, President Yoon Suk Yeol and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak will co-host the virtual leaders' session.

This session will be attended by the Group of Seven (G7) countries — the United States, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan — along with Singapore and Australia. These countries also attended last year's AI summit.

Representatives from international organizations including the United Nations and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) are expected to attend, as well as participants from the world's leading AI companies, such as ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Meta, Microsoft and Amazon.

Top Korean tech companies including Samsung and Naver will also take part.

China was among the countries invited to the ministerial-level session, though not the leaders' session, according to the presidential office.

Since taking office two years ago, Yoon has stressed the importance of innovation and inclusivity in the global arena, proposing to establish new digital and AI norms through the New York initiative during a U.S. trip in September 2022 and the Paris initiative in June 2023 during a visit to France and establishing a digital bill of rights last September.

"Korea is a leader in digital technology with home grown hyperscale AI models and global competitiveness in ICT and semiconductors," Wang said, noting that Seoul's hosting of the summit shows that "Yoon's series of digital and AI initiatives and domestic businesses' prowess in advanced digital technologies have been recognized globally."

The AI Global Forum, in turn, is a result of proposals made by Yoon at the UN General Assembly and the APEC leaders' summit last year to establish internationally recognized AI and digital norms, according to Wang.

"Through the global leadership in digital and AI norms secured through the AI Seoul Summit, we expect that Korea will be able to increase its global influence as a leading AI country and lay the foundation for leapfrogging into an AI G3 country," Park Sang-ook, senior presidential secretary for science and technology, said in Monday's press conference.

He referred to the Group of 3, or G3, highlighting a vision to make Korea one of the three leading nations in the world in AI technology.

Yoon and Sunak on Monday published joint opinion pieces in Korean daily JoongAng Ilbo and Britain's i-Newspaper on the topic of, "Only global AI standards can stop a race to the bottom."

"When we meet with companies at the AI Seoul Summit, we will ask them to do more to show how they assess and respond to risk within their organizations," read the piece. "We will also take the next steps on shaping the global standards that will avoid a race to the bottom."

The leaders added that the latest Seoul summit "will help to create a vision for AI governance which deals with those gaps, while promoting the fundamental priorities of innovation, safety and inclusivity."

Noting that the "pace of change will only continue to accelerate" in the AI landscape, they pledged to "continue to collaborate across the full range of AI issues for the years to come."

France will host the next AI safety summit.

BY SARAH KIM [kim.sarah@joongang.co.kr]