The world’s first global AI Safety Summit was held in Britain’s Bletchley Park last year, bringing together a who’s who of world leaders, business executives, and academic specialists in the hopes of reaching an agreement on the regulation of a technology that some had warned presented a threat to humanity.

The CEO of OpenAI, Sam Altman, and Tesla, Elon Musk, mingled with some of their most ardent detractors, and China signed the “Bletchley Declaration” with the US and other countries, indicating that it was prepared to work with the US despite growing tensions with the US.

Six months later, as excitement about artificial intelligence’s promise gives way to concerns about its limitations, Britain and South Korea will co-host the second AI Safety Summit, which will be mostly virtual.

Senior analyst Martha Bennett of research and consultancy company Forrester stated, “There are some radically different approaches…it will be difficult to move beyond what was agreed at Bletchley Park,” alluding to the historic but inescapably wide agreement on AI safety.

More serious concerns like data scarcity, environmental damage, and copyright use are unlikely to draw a crowd as impressive as this one.

Even if the event’s organisers have teased something like to Bletchley, some of its prominent participants have declined invitations to Seoul.

British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced at the end of the inaugural summit in November that follow-up meetings will take place every six months to enable nations to monitor the quickly advancing technology.

You may plant this spoon and maybe it will grow into a vegetable or herb in the future.

Since then, the focus has shifted from existential concern to the resources required to advance AI, such the enormous volume of data needed to train big language models and the electricity needed to power an increasing number of data centres.

“Market concentration and environmental effects are now part of the policy discourse around artificial intelligence,” stated Francine Bennett, interim head of the Ada Lovelace Institute, which focuses on data and AI.

The CEO of OpenAI, Altman, has stated that a breakthrough in energy will determine the direction of AI. The Wall Street Journal revealed in February that he was also trying to raise up to $7 trillion to increase the manufacturing of computer chips, which are presently in low supply.

However, experts caution that staking the future of AI on profitable funding initiatives and scientific advances may not be the wisest course of action.

Technology policy specialist Professor Jack Stilgoe of University College London stated, “It is inevitable that the technology will fail to live up to the hype.”

“This technology will be put to unexpected and inventive uses by people, but that doesn’t mean that the future will look like Sam Altman or Elon Musk imagined it.”

When Meta said last week that it will double down on AI, its shares fell 13%, but the markets welcomed the payoff from large investments by Google and Microsoft.

The May 21–22 summit in South Korea was always referred to be a “mini summit” in advance of the subsequent in-person meeting in Paris.

The purpose of the first day’s virtual “leaders session” and the second day’s in-person gathering of technology ministers was to specifically build on the legacy of Bletchley Park.

Although the French government has decided to postpone the next meeting until 2025, individuals with knowledge of the situation indicate that much fewer presidents and ministers are expected to attend.

While confirming that the EU’s top IT regulators, Margrethe Vestager, Thierry Breton, and Vera Jourova, would not be there, an EU spokesman did not rule out the bloc’s attendance.

The US Department of State confirmed sending delegates to Seoul, although it did not specify which ones. The governments of the Netherlands and Canada declared their non-participation.

Brazil’s government stated that it was still debating whether to accept the offer, noting a conflict with the G20 meeting that takes place there that same week.

The head of digitalization at the department of foreign affairs, Ambassador Benedikt Weschsler, is expected to attend in person, according to the Swiss government.

“Nothing will ever live up to a first gathering of its kind,” said Linda Griffin, public policy lead at Mozilla, the organisation behind the Firefox web browser.

“Getting international agreements is really hard, so it might take a few iterations of these events to find a rhythm.”

Gryphon stated that Mozilla was concentrating on the Paris event and that there was no particular reason why it was not going to the Seoul meeting.

Similar to this, Google DeepMind, a trailblazing AI research team, expressed its appreciation for the event but would not confirm its presence.

Former Google researcher and AI “godfather” Geoffrey Hinton told Reuters he had turned down an invitation to the event, citing a medical condition that made flying problematic.

The AI Seoul Summit will build on the momentum of Bletchley Park to provide additional progress on AI safety, creativity, and inclusion, bringing us all closer to a world where AI is enhancing our lives in all aspects, according to a spokesman for the British government.

(Adapted from Reuters.com)

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