UK to host world’s first AI summit

It is a speed race that the United Kingdom is now joining. On Wednesday, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced from Washington that his country would host the first global summit dedicated to artificial intelligence (AI) by the end of the year. Objective: to achieve a global approach in order to limit the risks ociated with this technology widely popularized by ChatGPT and its prowess .

“AI has incredible potential to transform our lives for the better. But we have to make sure it will be developed and used safely,” Rishi Sunak said on the sidelines of a visit to the White House, where he is to meet US President Joe Biden. “We have continually created, throughout history, revolutionary new technologies that we have used for the good of humanity. This is what we need to realize again,” he added.

Attracting a future global regulator

The summit should be held next fall and bring together “countries with a similar approach” in order to lay the foundations for regulation, said a spokesperson for the British leader. However, the idea of ​​this meeting is not intended to thwart the exploitation of AI that authoritarian states could make of it, such as China or Russia, said the same source.

However, it responds to the British desire to eventually host the headquarters of a potential global regulator of AI. However, this ambition could be jeopardized, while the European Union And United States have already started talking about it. Rishi Sunak ured that the United Kingdom was not in danger of finding itself excluded.

“I think we have to have confidence in our country’s ability to be a leader when it comes to AI, because that’s what the facts point out,” he told the BBC. . “If you look at the number of companies, the amounts invested, the quality of our research, no one is at the level among other democratic countries, apart from the United States”, insisted Rishi Sunak.

Biden ‘aware of the risks’

The British Prime Minister also ured that Joe Biden was not overwhelmed with this technology. “Yes, we discussed artificial intelligence when we were together in Japan [pour le sommet du G7, NDLR] and I know that he is fully aware of the risks and opportunities it entails, ”said Rishi Sunak on the British channel TalkTV, before his meeting with the American leader.

“But I also know that the president has in mind the threats that our countries will face in the future and wants to make sure that we work together to protect them,” he insisted, implicitly underlining American support for this proposal. of summit. While multiple voices have been raised against the all-out development of AI and called for a break OpenAI boss Sam Altman ures that he was not yet training his future GPT-5 model, reports TechCrunch . But for how long ?