The #UK is hosting the first event of its kind, the "#AI #Safety Summit," at Bletchley Park, the hi

The #UK is hosting the first event of its kind, the "#AI #Safety Summit," at Bletchley Park, the historic site that was once home to the World War 2 Codebreakers and now houses the National Museum of Computing. The summit aims to explore some of the long-term questions and risks AI poses, with #idealistic objectives such as a shared understanding of the risks posed by frontier AI and the need for action, a forward process for international collaboration on frontier AI safety, and appropriate measures for individual organizations to increase frontier #AIsafety.

#Toplevel #governmentofficials, captains of industry, and notable thinkers in the space are among those expected to attend. However, tickets to the Summit are in scarce supply, and conversations will be small and mostly closed. As a result, a whole raft of other events and news developments have sprung up around the Summit, looping in the many other issues and stakeholders at play. These include talks at the Royal Society (the U.K.’s National Academy of sciences), a big "AI Fringe" conference that is being held across multiple cities all week, many announcements of task forces, and more.

The event in #Bletchley will do what it does, and whatever is not in the purview there becomes an opportunity for people to put their heads together to talk about the rest

#AIFringe, organized by #Milltown #Partners, has quickly spilled into and filled out an agenda that has wrapped itself around Bletchley, literally and figuratively. It carries on through the whole week, in multiple locations in the country, free to attend in person for those who could snag tickets, and with streaming components for many parts of it.

The discussion of AI, a relatively new technology, has been divided into two main #conferences: one in the #corridors of #power and the other for the #generalpublic. A group of 100 #trade #unions and #rights #campaigners sent a letter to the prime minister expressing their concerns about the government's decision not to have them attend the Bletchley Park event. This letter was shared with the Financial Times, the most elite economic publication in the country.

Some argue that #streamlining the #conversation can create more focus, as larger numbers can make it harder to reach #conclusions or have effective #discussions. The AI Safety Summit has become an anchor and only one part of the bigger conversation going on. U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has announced plans to launch a new AI safety institute and research network to put more time and thought into AI implications. A group of prominent academics published a paper called "Managing AI Risks in an Era of Rapid Progress," and the UN announced its task force to explore the implications of AI.

The idea of AI posing "existential risk" has been a major debate, with some arguing that misinformation is one of the areas where AI short and medium term has potential risks attached to it. The U.K. government appears to be playing both sides of this debate, with the harm element clearly stated in the name of the event. Sunak stated that without a shared understanding of the risks that we face, they cannot work together to address them and will push hard to agree on the first-ever international statement about the nature of these risks.

The UK is set to host the #BletchleyPark #AISummit, aiming to position itself as a central player in setting the agenda for AI and its economic implications. The summit aims to attract more jobs and investment from the new wave of technology, such as safe AI, and to address the proliferation of AI-generated sex abuse images. However, critics argue that having big tech in the room might be a problem, as "regulatory capture" has been another big theme in the brave new world of AI.

Nigel Toon, #CEO of #AI chipmaker #Graphcore, noted that governments might be tempted to rush in and take AI technology leaders' word. He also noted that existential risks are not that long-term, but rather catastrophic risks. The biggest concerns will remain bad actors using AI rather than AI running riot: using it in biowarfare, in national security situations, and misinformation that can alter the course of democracy.

The #business #outlook is also #uncertain, with some analysts believing that the road to investing in #AI might not be as smooth as some #predict. Avivah Litan, VP analyst at @Gartner, believes that enterprises need time and money to allocate to generative AI projects to get reliable outputs that can boost productivity and revenue. GenAI outputs are not reliable enough yet, and significant resources are required to make them reliable. AI investments will certainly slow it down for enterprises and government organizations that make use of them, as vendors are pushing their AI applications and products but the organizations can't adopt them as quickly as they are being pushed to.