Technical Secretary Michelle Donnellan said increased international cooperation on AI safety, spurred by the UK-created AI Safety Summit, would help shape national legislation.
The UK is currently co-hosting the AI Seoul Summit with South Korea, where more than 10 AI companies have agreed to develop new safety standards. Ten countries and the EU have also agreed to form an international network of publicly supported safety laboratories to advance AI safety research and testing globally.
The summit comes six months after the UK hosted the first AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, where world leaders and AI companies focused on the safe and responsible development of AI and agreed to conduct further research into the potential risks involved.
Donnellan said these regular meetings and discussions will help keep AI safety at the “top” of national agendas around the world, as many countries consider how best to legislate around this emerging technology. He said it was helpful.
“What we've been saying is that laws need to be enacted in a timely manner, but they can't be out of date by the time we actually issue them. And we We need to know exactly what's in that law. We need to understand the risks, and that's another thing this summit process will help us achieve,” she told PA. told the news agency.
“I think what we've done in the UK by setting up this long-term summit process, starting in Bletchley and now here in Seoul and now in France, is create a long-term process for holding conferences,” he said. “The very themes of AI safety, innovation and inclusivity are all intertwined so we can put a strong focus on this and put it at the top of the agenda for other countries and nations.”
The technology secretary added that “AI does not respect geographic boundaries” and that addressing AI safety domestically is “not enough” and that a new network of international safety agencies would be “interoperable.” He added that the resulting shared knowledge will assist governments. To be “more strategic” in AI risk management.
“Having said that, of course we have a national track in this area, and we look forward to adding the resources, skills and support of our existing regulators, and to actually enacting legislation when the time is right.” It revolves around ensuring that,” she said. .
The technology secretary added that the next step of discussion at the summit in Seoul, which he will co-chair with other technology ministers from around the world on Wednesday, will be on how to further incorporate safety into AI development.
“The way I see it, the first phase was basically Bletchley up until Seoul, and what we were able to achieve there was a ‘Bletchley effect’ that caused AI to jump onto the agenda in many countries. ,” she said.
“We have also demonstrated the UK's global leadership in this field and established a framework for how evaluations (of AI models) can be carried out through the Institute.
“We're now in the second phase, from Seoul and beyond to France, where we're not just looking at how to make AI safe, but how to build safety into society as a whole, what I call systemic safety. We also need to consider whether this can be achieved.”
