South Korea and the United Kingdom will co-host the second global AI summit in Seoul, as the rapid pace of innovation since the first AI summit in November has left governments scrambling to address a growing array of risks. UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak and South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol will oversee a virtual summit on Tuesday, amid calls for better regulation of artificial intelligence despite sharp disagreements over its potential impacts on humanity.
In a joint opinion article published in the UK’s i newspaper and South Korea’s JoongAng Ilbo, entitled 'Only global AI standards can stop a race to the bottom', Sunak and Yoon highlighted the urgent need for cohesive global AI governance. “Although positive efforts have been made to shape global AI governance, significant gaps still remain”, they wrote.
The November event, initially billed as the AI Safety Summit, has evolved in scope due to the expanding challenges of AI. The upcoming meetings, now referred to as the AI Seoul Summit, will focus on three priorities: AI safety, innovation, and inclusion, according to the summit’s website.
A global AI safety report released in conjunction with the summit warns of significant risks such as large-scale labor market impacts, AI-enabled hacking, and potential biological attacks. The report also emphasizes the risk of society losing control over general-purpose AI, though it acknowledges ongoing debates about these scenarios' likelihood. “But… it will be the decisions of societies and governments that will determine the future of AI”, states the report, which is supported by experts from over 30 countries.
The report also highlights the widening spectrum of risks from rapidly evolving AI technologies, including existential threats to humanity, AI inequality, data scarcity, misuse of copyright material, and the environmental impact due to the significant electricity consumption of AI data centers.
The UK-hosted summit in November saw notable attendees such as Tesla’s Elon Musk and OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, who engaged with some of their staunchest critics. During this event, China co-signed the 'Bletchley Declaration' on collectively managing AI risks alongside the United States and other nations.
As of now, it remains unclear who will participate in Tuesday's virtual summit or the in-person session chaired by UK and South Korean ministers on Wednesday. However, a separate South Korea-hosted AI forum on Wednesday is expected to feature notable attendees, including Jack Clark, co-founder of AI safety and research company Anthropic, and executives from OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft, Meta, and IBM, according to the event’s website.
The AI Seoul Summit represents a critical step in the ongoing global dialogue about AI regulation and governance, reflecting the urgent need for international cooperation to address the multifaceted risks and opportunities presented by AI technology.