Sunak says agreements at UK summit tip the balance in favor of humanity in fight against AI threats

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Delegates from 28 nations, including the U.S. and China, have agreed to work together to contain the potential “catastrophic” risks posed by galloping advances in artificial intelligence. (2 November).

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left, attends an in-conversation event with Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk in London, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Sunak discussed AI with Elon Musk in a conversation that is played on the social network X, which Musk owns.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak arrives for the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are set to join delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Justin Tallis/Pool Photo via AP)

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First row, from left, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres, back row from left, Yoshua Bengio, founder and scientific director of Mila at the Quebec AI Institute, Vice Chair and President at Microsoft Brad Smith and Alondra Nelson, former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, pose for a group photo, on the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, meets with US Vice President Kamala Harris at 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday Nov. 1, 2023. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak speaks to journalists upon his arrival for the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are set to join delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Justin Tallis/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, meets with US Vice President Kamala Harris at 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday Nov. 1, 2023. The vice president is visiting the UK to attend the British government’s AI Safety Summit. (Carl Court/Pool Photo via AP)

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US Vice President Kamala Harris leaves 10 Downing Street after a meeting with Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023. Harris is on a two day visit to England to attend the AI Summit at Bletchley Park. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak welcomes US Vice President Kamala Harris to 10 Downing Street in London, Wednesday, Nov. 1, 2023. Harris is on a two day visit to England to attend the AI Summit at Bletchley Park. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)

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UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, arrives for the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are set to join delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Joe Giddens/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, speaks with UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, on the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak are set to join delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Joe Giddens/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and leaders pose for a Group photo on the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joined delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

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First row from left, France’s Minister for Economy, Finance, Industry and Digital Security Bruno Le Maire, German Economy and Climate Minister Robert Habeck, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Richard Marles, Middle + Back row, from left, Google’s James Manyika, Tino Cuellar, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Amba Kak, AI Now Institute, Arthur Mensch, Mistal AI, Adam Selipsky, Amazon Web Services, Nick Clegg, Meta, Yoshu Bengio, Yoshua Bengio, founder and scientific director of Mila at the Quebec AI Institute, Dario Amodei, Anthropic, Sam Altman, OpenAI, Mircrosoft’s Brad Smith, Mustafa Suleyman, Inflection AI, Alondra Nelson, former acting director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, Demis Hassabis, Google DeepMind, Eric Schmidt, Schmidt Futures, Ian Hogarth, chair of the UK frontier AI taskforce and Reid Hoffman, Inflection AI, pose for a group photo on the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak attends the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joined delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, left, greets Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Richard Marles on the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joined delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, right, greets Germany’s Economy and Climate Action Minister Robert Habeck on the second day of the UK Artificial Intelligence (AI) Safety Summit, at Bletchley Park, in Bletchley, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris and British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak joined delegates Thursday at a U.K. summit focused on containing risks from rapid advances in cutting edge artificial intelligence. (Leon Neal/Pool Photo via AP)

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly, centre, poses with Rwandan Minister of Innovation, Paula Ingabire, left, and Canadian Minister of Innovation Francis-Philippe Champagne during the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in Milton Keynes, England, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Political leaders, digital officials, tech company bosses and researchers are converging two days at a former codebreaking spy base near London to discuss and better understand the extreme risks posed by cutting-edge artificial intelligence. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

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Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak gestures during an in-conversation event with Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk in London, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Sunak discussed AI with Elon Musk in a conversation that is played on the social network X, which Musk owns.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool)

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Tesla and SpaceX’s CEO Elon Musk gestures during an in-conversation event with Britain’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak in London, Thursday, Nov. 2, 2023. Sunak discussed AI with Elon Musk in a conversation that is played on the social network X, which Musk owns.(AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth, Pool)

By KELVIN CHAN and JILL LAWLESS

BLETCHLEY PARK, England (AP) — British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Thursday that achievements at the first international AI Safety Summit would “tip the balance in favor of humanity” in the race to contain the risks from rapid advances in cutting-edge artificial intelligence.

Speaking after two days of talks at Bletchley Park, a former codebreaking spy base near London, Sunak said agreements struck at the meeting of politicians, researchers and business leaders “show that we have both the political will and the capability to control this technology, and secure its benefits for the long term.”

Sunak organized the summit as a forum for officials, experts and the tech industry to better understand cutting-edge, “frontier” AI that some scientists warn could pose a risk to humanity’s very existence.

He hailed the gathering’s achievements, including a “Bletchley Declaration” committing nations to tackle the biggest threats from artificial intelligence, a deal to vet tech firms’ AI models before their release, and an agreement to call together a global expert panel on AI, inspired by the United Nations’ climate change panel.

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Some argue that governments must go further and faster on oversight. Britain has no plans for specific legislation to regulate AI, unlike the U.S. and the European Union.

Vice President Kamala Harris attended the summit, stressing steps the Biden administration has taken to hold tech firms to account. She said Thursday that the United States’ “bold action” should be “inspiring and instructive to other nations.”

United Nations Secretary General Antonio Guterres urged a coordinated global effort, comparing risks from AI to the Nazi threat that Britain’s wartime codebreakers worked to combat.

“Bletchley Park played a vital part in the computing breakthroughs that helped to defeat Nazism,” he said “The threat posed by AI is more insidious – but could be just as dangerous.”

The U.N. chief, like many others, warned about the need to act swiftly to keep pace with AI’s breathtaking advances. General purpose AI chatbots like ChatGPT released over the past year stirred both amazement and fear with their ability to generate text, audio and images that closely resembled human work.

“The speed and reach of today’s AI technology are unprecedented,” Guterres said. “The paradox is that in the future, it will never move as slowly as today. The gap between AI and its governance is wide and growing.”

Sunak hailed the summit as a success, despite its arguably modest achievements. He managed to get 28 nations — including the U.S. and China — to sign up to working toward “shared agreement and responsibility” about AI risks, and to hold further meetings in South Korea and France over the next year.

China did not attend the second day, which focused on meetings among what the U.K. termed a small group of countries “with shared values.” Sunak held a roundtable with politicians from the EU, the U.N., Italy, Germany, France and Australia.

Announcing the expert panel on Thursday, Sunak said pioneering computer scientist Yoshua Bengio, dubbed one of the “godfathers” of AI, had agreed to chair production of its first report on the state of AI science.

Sunak said likeminded governments and AI companies also had reached a “landmark agreement” to work together on testing the safety of AI models before they’re released to the public. Leading AI companies at the meeting including OpenAI, Google’s DeepMind, Anthropic and Inflection AI have agreed to “deepen access” to their frontier AI models, he said.

Binding regulation for AI was not among the summit’s goals. Sunak said the U.K.'s approach should not be to rush into regulation but to fully understand AI first.

Harris emphasized the U.S. administration’s more hands-on approach in a speech at the U.S. embassy on Wednesday, saying the world needs to act right away to address “the full spectrum” of AI risks, not just existential threats such as massive cyberattacks or AI-formulated bioweapons.

She announced a new U.S. AI safety institute to draw up standards for testing AI models for public use. She said it would collaborate with a similar U.K. institute announced by Sunak days earlier.

One of the Biden administration’s main concerns is that advances in AI are widening inequality within societies and between countries. As a step towards addressing that, Britain’s Foreign Secretary James Cleverly announced a $100 million fund, supported by the U.K., the U.S. and others, to help ensure African countries get a share of AI’s benefits – and that 46 African languages are fed into its models.

Cleverly told reporters that it’s crucial there is a “diversity of voice” informing AI.

“If it was just Euro-Atlantic and China, we would miss stuff, potentially huge amounts of stuff,” he said.

Sunak capped the summit with a cozy onstage chat with Tesla CEO Elon Musk at a business reception in London’s grand Lancaster House. Musk is among tech executives who have warned that AI could pose a risk to humanity’s future.

“Here we are for the first time, really in human history, with something that is going to be far more intelligent than us,” Musk said at the summit. “It’s not clear to me if we can control such a thing.”

The conversation with Sunak — streamed after it happened on the Musk-owned social network X — ranged over topics from whether AI would remove the need for work to the need to have an off-switch for humanoid robots that could turn on their makers.

Musk likened AI to “a magic genie” that could grant all wishes, but noted that those fairytales rarely end well.

“One of the future challenges is how do you find meaning in life?” he said.

The pair did not take questions from journalists.

Sunak said earlier that it was important not to be “alarmist” about the technology, which could bring huge benefits.

“But there is a case to believe that it may pose a risk on a scale like pandemics and nuclear war, and that’s why, as leaders, we have a responsibility to act to take the steps to protect people, and that’s exactly what we’re doing,” he said.

JILL LAWLESS

London correspondent covering politics and more.