Union Minister of State for IT Rajeev Chandrasekhar will bring the Indian perspective on harnessing artificial intelligence for the benefit of citizens at the UK’s two-day AI Safety Summit, which opened on Wednesday.
Hosted by British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, the home of modern computing where celebrated British mathematician Alan Turing’s team broke the Enigma code, the summit is bringing together representatives from 27 countries.
Besides, businesses, civil society, and AI experts, tech billionaire Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, will participate in the first global summit of its kind to discuss the global future of AI and its risks.
“Look forward to discuss ways in which Artificial Intelligence can be harnessed to transform lives of citizens, catalyse the Digital Economy while ensuring safety and trust of Digital Nagriks (sic),” Chandrasekhar, who is the Minister of State for Entrepreneurship, Skill Development, Electronics and Technology said in a post on X.
The historic Bletchley Park venue has been chosen for its tech significance as the base where the Enigma code was cracked to turn the tide of World War II in favour of Britain.
On day one of the summit, UK Technology Secretary Michelle Donelan set out the UK government’s vision for safety and security to be at the heart of advances in AI, in order to enable the enormous opportunities it will bring.
It follows Sunak’s big push to pitch the UK as a leader in examining and testing new types of AI, announcing Britain as the headquarters of the world’s first AI Safety Institute. He will be joining world leaders on Thursday for closed-door roundtables and discussions.
“On Day 2, I’ll be joining world representatives and business leaders to drive these important talks forward. We’ll be discussing what the next five years looks like for AI, and the action we’ll need to take to ensure it’s developed safely, both in the short and long term,” said Sunak.
“Used in the right way, AI could dwarf anything any of us have achieved in a generation. It’s why I want to seize every opportunity for our country to benefit in the way I’m so convinced that it can. And it’s why I believe we can look to the future with optimism and hope,” he said.
The aims of the summit have been set out as agreeing on the risks of AI to inform managing them, better international collaboration, and looking at how safe AI can be used for good globally.
Sunak is also set for an in-conversation session with X Corp chief Elon Musk at the end of the summit on Thursday.
Vice-President Kamala Harris is representing the US, with countries such as France, Germany, Italy, Japan and China sending in representatives. There has been some media criticism over the lack of senior leadership from participating countries and also some questions over Chinese participation.
“AI is already an extraordinary force for good in our society, with limitless opportunity to grow the global economy, deliver better public services, and tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges. But the risks posed by frontier AI are serious and substantive and it is critical that we work together, both across sectors and countries to recognise these risks,” said Donelan, as she flagged off the summit.
“This summit provides an opportunity for us to ensure we have the right people with the right expertise gathered around the table to discuss how we can mitigate these risks moving forward. Only then will we be able to truly reap the benefits of this transformative technology in a responsible manner,” she said.
The minister is joined by members of the UK’s Frontier AI Taskforce, which was launched earlier this year to evaluate the risks of AI models at the very cusp of the latest and most powerful systems using artificial intelligence capabilities.
Discussions will also look at what national policymakers, the international community, and scientists and researchers can do to manage the risks and harness the opportunities of AI to deliver economic and social benefits around the world.
