U.K. hosts first AI safety summit

The United Kingdom kicked off its inaugural AI Safety Summit on Wednesday morning, bringing government officials, tech executives, and academic minds together to discuss safeguards while developing artificial intelligence programs. The two-day summit convened at Bletchley Park, where mathematician Alan Turing famously cracked the Nazi “Enigma” code during World War II, laying a foundation for modern computer science. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak championed the summit, which aims to bring international cooperation in developing ethical principles for AI use. The forum is also meant to discuss potential issues around AI misuse and loss of control.

Who’s attending? Tesla CEO Elon Musk is attending alongside executives from Google, Samsung, IBM, OpenAI, and Meta. Chinese Vice Minister of Science and Technology Wu Zhaohui is also in attendance. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris will speak Thursday at the summit on the Biden administration’s policy approach to AI. Her speech comes days after President Joe Biden’s executive order on AI safety.

Dig deeper: Read Bekah McCallum’s report in WORLD Magazine on the internet's hazards and moral pitfalls.