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| British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak concerned over existential risk of AI Image Credit: Google |
The British Prime
Minister Rishi Sunak will initiate a push for an “artificial intelligence pact”
between governments and companies in talks with US President Joe Biden next
week.
According to
the Premier, he would raise the issue of Artificial Intelligence when he visits
United States for discussions as he acknowledged concerns that the technology
poses an “existential risk” to humanity. The Telegraph reported.
Mr Sunak aims
at endorsing proposals for a “voluntary pact” will be formulated to prevent the
worst harms before new laws addressing AI can be introduced.
United States
and European Union officials met on Wednesday for talks on regulating the
industry with the aspiration that an agreement can be reached in the coming
months. Although the Biden administration is thought to be divided on how to
crack down on Artificial Intelligence companies.
The nitty
gritty of the Pact is yet to be decided:
Details of the
pact are yet to be confirmed. Although Group of Seven (G7) leaders said earlier
this month in the summit held in Japan that companies should work towards Artificial
Intelligence systems being accurate, safe and transparent, as well as not
infringing copyright laws.
Similarly,
China has already started work to establish regulatory system over Artificial
Intelligence companies working there.
In the last
week, Mr Sunak hosted the chief executives of leading AI developers OpenAI,
DeepMind, and Anthropic, said: “AI clearly can bring massive benefits to the
economy and society. But we need to make sure this is done in a way that is
safe and secure.”
The Prime
Minister after meeting felt the need to establish regulatory systems. He also
discussed with the CEOs of major AI companies about what are the guardrails
that we need to put in place, what’s the type of regulation that should be put
in place to keep the humanity safe.
As the CEOs stated that “People will be concerned by the reports that AI poses an
existential risk like pandemics or nuclear wars.”
In response,
the Prime Minister said, “I want them to be reassured that the government is
looking very carefully at this.”
“And I think
the UK can play a leadership role because ultimately, we’re only going to
grapple with this problem and solve it if we work together not just with the
companies, but with countries around the world. It’s something that I’ve
already been discussing with other leaders at the G7 summit the other week,
I’ll be doing that again when I visit the US very soon.”
Statement to
Mitigate the Risk of AI:
Around 350
executives and researchers signed a statement on Tuesday, 30th of
May, 2023.
They also emphasised,
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority
alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war.”
Sam Altman was
present among the signatories whose company OpenAI develops the popular chatbot
ChatGPT.
EU Proposal:
EU by taking AI
as a Global Concern, tasked its officials to discuss proposals for an AI pact
with executives including Google’s Sundar Pichai last week, and have held talks
in Sweden this week with US representatives.
According to Margrethe
Vestager, the EU’s tech chief, informed the reporters that the proper “Pact” is
needed despite of EU plans to regulate AI.
She feared, “In
the best of cases it will take effect in two and a half to three years time.
That is obviously way too late,” and “We need to act now.”
She kept on
saying, “If the two of us take the lead with close friends, I think we can
push something that will make us all much more comfortable with the fact that
generative AI is now in the world and is developing at amazing speeds.”
US Split in Government
Department:
There is split
in the US government departments on how to tackle AI on the grounds that some
quarters of the White House concerned that cracking down on the technology
would put US companies at a competitive disadvantage. Bloomberg reported.
(Courtesy: The
Telegraph)
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