The London summit this week on the safe use of Artificial Intelligence could be an important first step towards the global governance of a technology that offers much promise and unprecedented danger.
Convened by the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on Wednesday and Thursday at Bletchley Park outside London, the summit will have the US Vice President Kamala Harris and several other world leaders in attendance. Many top honchos of the technology companies are expected to join them. The participation has been limited to about 100 people to facilitate serious and intensive discussion.
Part of Sunak’s motivation, critics allege, is to shore up his standing as a global leader amid the certain prospects, as of now at least, that he will preside over the defeat of the Conservative Party in the next general elections. Whatever his personal political interest might be, Sunak is certainly trying to claim a leadership role for Britain in the global governance of AI.
In the run-up to the summit, Sunak has talked about his plans to make Britain “not just the intellectual home, but the geographical home of global AI safety regulation”. This is part of Sunak’s ambition to make Britain a “technology superpower”. Sceptics might discount Sunak’s rhetoric, but Britain remains one of the world’s leading technological powers.
In convening the summit at Bletchley Park, Sunak is also reminding the world of AI’s origins in Britain. It was at Bletchley Park that early research on AI was pioneered by Alan Turing, who is widely considered as the “father of AI”. Turing and his team of mathematicians had helped crack “Enigma”, a German code during World War II, giving the Allies a huge advantage in their military operations. Although the United States and China are the leading powers in AI development today, Britain has retained its place as one of the major hubs of AI development in the world.
The London AI summit comes amid steps by various governments to address the challenges of governing AI. Earlier this week, the US President Joe Biden issued an executive order to ensure that “America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence (AI)”. It establishes “new standards for AI safety and security, protects Americans’ privacy, advances equity and civil rights, stands up for consumers and workers, promotes innovation and competition, advances American leadership around the world, and more.”
The EU, meanwhile, is discussing the promulgation of what could be the world’s first comprehensive framework for regulation. It will define rules to govern the development and use of AI across the European Union. It will involve the setting up of a European Board for Artificial Intelligence to audit and administer the new rules.
Last month, China outlined a broad set of principles for international cooperation and global governance of AI.
Beijing called for an increase in the “voice of developing countries in global AI governance, and ensure equal rights, equal opportunities, and equal rules for all countries in AI development and governance.” China also expressed support for UN discussions on establishing an “international institution to govern AI, and to coordinate efforts to address major issues concerning international AI development, security, and governance.”
Last week also saw the United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Gueterres establish an advisory body to examine the risks, opportunities and international governance of AI. He believes AI “could supercharge climate action and the efforts to achieve the sustainable development goals” that the world has set for itself.
He underlined the importance of AI “being harnessed responsibly and made accessible to all”. He pointed out that the AI expertise today is concentrated in a handful of companies and countries which he warned could “deepen global inequalities and turn digital divides into chasms.”
The agenda of the London summit though is more modest and narrowly focused. Its essence is to ensure the safe use of AI technologies to facilitate their widespread beneficial use. As Sunak put it last week, “AI will bring new knowledge, new opportunities for economic growth, new advances in human capability, and the chance to solve problems we once thought beyond us. But it also brings new dangers and new fears.”
A discussion paper released by the British government last week talked of some of those dangers from AI–ranging from the spread of disinformation to the diffusion of knowledge to assemble chemical and biological weapons.
“The responsible thing for me to do is to address those fears head-on,” Sunak added, “giving you the peace of mind that we will keep you safe, while making sure you and your children have all the opportunities for a better future that AI can bring.”
At the summit, Sunak is expected to announce the setting up of an AI Safety Research Institute that will “carefully examine, evaluate and test new types of AI so that we understand what each new model is capable of” and the kind of risks it might present.
Even the modest agenda of the London summit will have to navigate multiple fault lines in achieving concrete results. Sunak’s focus on safety is to overcome the long-standing faultline between regulation and promotion. While many civil society groups demand outright ban on the development of AI or impose a moratorium, the companies rushing to invest in AI would want to prevent over-regulation that will kill innovation.
There is also a division over how to define “frontier AI” that the London summit is focused on. Critics say the focus on doomsday scenarios tend to mask the immediate challenges, such as algorithmic bias, that the current generation of AI technologies present.
One of the issues that the London summit is discussing is the establishment of an international register of frontier AI models that will allow governments to assess the risks involved. This is unlikely to pass muster with private companies.
That brings us to one of the core challenges of regulating AI. In the past, frontier technology development, in nuclear and space, was led by governments. Today, AI development outside China is with large digital corporations.
Whether it comes up with specific answers or not, the London Summit is likely to lay out some important markers for the unfolding global discourse on AI regulation. India, which played a key role in the 20th century discussions on regulating advanced technologies, will have to find its own voice on AI governance. With one major difference — this time India is a contributor to the global development of AI.
The writer is a senior fellow at the Asia Society Policy Institute in Delhi and a contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express
