Bletchley summit communique does not agree to set up testing hub in UK, as some in government had hoped
From left: the US secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo; the UK technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, and Wu Zhaohui, China’s vice-minister of science and technology, at the AI safety summit.From left: the US secretary of commerce, Gina Raimondo; the UK technology secretary, Michelle Donelan, and Wu Zhaohui, China’s vice-minister of science and technology, at the AI safety summit.
Twenty-eight governments signed up to the so-called Bletchley declaration on the first day of the AI safety summit hosted by the British government. The declaration does not agree to set up an international testing hub in the UK, as some in the British government had hoped. But it does provide a template for international collaboration in the future, with future safety summits now planned in South Korea in six months’ time and in France in a year.
“Given the rapid and uncertain rate of change of AI, and in the context of the acceleration of investment in technology, we affirm that deepening our understanding of these potential risks and of actions to address them is especially urgent.” Rishi Sunak welcomed the declaration, the prime minister calling it “a landmark achievement that sees the world’s greatest AI powers agree on the urgency behind understanding the risks of AI”.