The UK has established a Frontier AI task force in June to prepare for the AI Safety Summit held this week. This task force is set to become a permanent entity as the UK aims to take a leading role in shaping AI policy in the future. Today, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak formally introduced the AI Safety Institute, a global hub headquartered in the UK responsible for evaluating the safety of emerging AI technologies.
The institute had been informally mentioned in the lead-up to the summit, and the government has now confirmed that it will be led by Ian Hogarth, an investor, founder, and engineer who also chaired the task force. Yoshua Bengio, a prominent figure in the AI field, will lead the production of its inaugural report.
Details regarding the funding for the AI Safety Institute remain unclear, and it’s uncertain whether industry players will be expected to contribute financially. While described as “backed by leading AI companies,” this support may be more about endorsement than financial backing. Further inquiries to the Department of Science, Innovation, and Technology (DSIT) are pending.
This announcement coincides with the recent Bletchley Declaration, a pact signed by all summit attendees, committing them to collaborate on safety testing and risk assessment of “frontier AI” technologies, such as large language models. Prime Minister Sunak emphasized the importance of working together to ensure the safety of new AI models before their release.
However, the regulation of AI technologies remains a contentious issue. The UK has been cautious about regulating AI at both the platform and application levels, with some arguing that without enforcement, the concepts of safety and risk assessment are ineffective. Sunak believes it’s premature to implement regulations and stressed the need for a comprehensive understanding of what needs to be legislated before taking any such measures.
While transparency is a central goal in the ongoing discussions surrounding AI technology, the Bletchley summit’s proceedings have been largely closed off to the public. The second day of the summit featured bilateral sessions with prominent figures like European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Closed plenary sessions were attended by notable CEOs from DeepMind, OpenAI, Antrhopic, InflectionAI, Salesforce, and Mistral, along with Microsoft’s president and the head of AWS. Government representation included UK Prime Minister Sunak, US Vice President Kamala Harris, Giorgia Meloni of Italy, and French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire.
Notably, China, initially anticipated to attend the summit, did not participate in the closed plenary sessions on the second day. Elon Musk, owner of X.ai (formerly known as Twitter), was absent from the day’s sessions, but he is scheduled for a private discussion with Sunak on Musk’s social platform, although it will not be broadcast live.
