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Government officials and AI industry executives agreed on Tuesday to apply elementary safety measures in the fast-moving field and establish an international safety research network.<\/p>\n
Nearly six months after the inaugural global summit on AI safety at Bletchley Park in England, Britain and South Korea are hosting the AI safety summit this week in Seoul.\u00a0The gathering underscores the\u00a0new challenges and opportunities the world faces\u00a0with the advent of AI technology.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The British government announced on Tuesday\u00a0a new agreement\u00a0<\/a>between 10 countries and the European Union to establish an international network\u00a0similar to the U.K.\u2019s AI Safety Institute<\/a>, which is the world\u2019s first publicly backed organization, to accelerate the advancement of AI safety science. The network will promote a common understanding of AI safety and align its work with research, standards, and testing. Australia, Canada, the EU, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Singapore, South Korea, the U.K., and the U.S. have signed the agreement.<\/p>\n On the first day of the AI Summit in Seoul, global leaders and leading AI companies convened for a virtual meeting chaired by U.K. prime minister Rishi Sunak and South Korean president Yoon Suk Yeol to discuss AI safety, innovation\u00a0and\u00a0inclusion.\u00a0<\/p>\n During the discussions, the leaders agreed to the broader Seoul Declaration<\/a>, emphasizing increased international collaboration in building AI to address major global issues, uphold human rights, and bridge digital gaps worldwide, all while prioritizing being \u201chuman-centric, trustworthy, and responsible.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cAI is a hugely\u00a0exciting technology \u2014 and the U.K. has led global efforts to deal with its potential, hosting the world\u2019s first AI Safety Summit last year,\u201d Sunak said in a U.K. government statement. \u201cBut to get the upside, we must ensure it\u2019s safe. That\u2019s why I\u2019m delighted we have got an agreement today for a network of AI Safety Institutes.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n Just last month, the U.K. and the U.S.\u00a0sealed a partnership memorandum of understanding<\/a>\u00a0to collaborate on research, safety evaluation, and guidance on AI safety.\u00a0<\/p>\n The agreement announced today follows\u00a0the world\u2019s first AI Safety Commitments from 16 companies involved in AI<\/a>, including Amazon, Anthropic, Cohere, Google, IBM, Inflection AI, Meta, Microsoft, Mistral AI, Open AI, Samsung Electronics, Technology Innovation Institute, xAi and Zhipu.ai. (Zhipu.ai<\/a> is a Chinese company backed by Alibaba, Ant and Tencent.)\u00a0<\/p>\n The AI companies, including those from the U.S., China, and the United Arab Emirates (UAE), have agreed to the safety commitments to \u201cnot develop or deploy a model or system at all if mitigations cannot keep risks below the thresholds,\u201d according to the U.K. government statement.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a world first to have so many leading\u00a0AI\u00a0companies from so many different parts of the globe all agreeing to the same commitments on\u00a0AI\u00a0safety,\u201d Sunak said. \u201cThese commitments ensure the world\u2019s leading\u00a0AI\u00a0companies will provide transparency and accountability on their plans to develop safe\u00a0AI.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n