Lawmakers, AI pioneers and academics will gather at the famous Bletchley Park in Britain for the world’s first global artificial intelligence (AI) safety summit next month.
Bletchley Park is the site in southern England where mathematician Alan Turing cracked Nazi Germany’s Enigma code.
According to tech investor Matt Clifford, one of the two chief organisers of the summit, the aim of the meeting is to kick-start international dialogue on AI regulation.
Reuters reports that Britain is aiming to use the summit as a step towards carving a role following Brexit as an arbiter between the US, China, and the EU in a key tech sector.
The summit on the first two days of November will focus heavily on the existential threat some lawmakers, including Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, fear AI poses. Sunak, who wants the UK to become a hub for AI safety, has warned that the technology could be used by criminals and terrorists to create weapons of mass destruction.
The EU, in contrast, has prioritised the technology’s implications for human rights and corporate transparency.
US vice-president Kamala Harris and Google DeepMind CEO Demis Hassabis head a guest list that includes lawmakers, AI pioneers and academics.