At a table where democratic accountability should dominate, a diminished nation is trading in Silicon Valley celebrity, says Guardian columnist Rafael Behr
‘Much to No 10’s gratification, Elon Musk’s dialogue with the prime minister will be broadcast on X.’ Musk in New York, 17 September 2023.‘Much to No 10’s gratification, Elon Musk’s dialogue with the prime minister will be broadcast on X.’ Musk in New York, 17 September 2023.
Sunak’s view is that China is already a global player in AI, so the dialogue is incomplete without them. Not unreasonably, No 10 will claim the summit as a success if it produces any kind of memorandum that carries Chinese and American signatures. In that respect, the summit reflects Britain’s uneasy post-Brexit strategic position. The prime minister’s grownup diplomacy earns him constructive engagement from international allies, but they haven’t forgotten how his predecessors forfeited their country’s reputation for serious government.
The US will do its own thing, as it always does, except when there is a compelling economic or political motive to compromise with jurisdictions of equivalent market heft, which Britain is not.a sprawling executive order on AI security covering, among other things, consumer protection, data privacy, mandatory sharing of private companies’ safety tests with the federal government and mitigation against discrimination by algorithms. Equivalent European law is in train.
Russia is committed to a violent restoration of Soviet borders. War in the Middle East threatens to spiral outwards into a vast regional conflagration. There is aof Donald Trump returning to the White House next year, and even if he fails, a Republican party moulded in his image cannot be trusted to uphold basic principles of constitutional democracy at home, nor favour them in alliances abroad.
The planned livestream chat with Musk is a case in point. It implies deference to the glamour of big tech that is inappropriate to the ostensible mission of an AI safety summit. It is trading in Silicon Valley celebrity at a table where democratic accountability should be the dominant currency.
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