LONDON (Reuters) – Britain on Wednesday published a “Bletchley Declaration”, agreed with countries including the United States and China, aimed at boosting global efforts to cooperate on artificial intelligence (AI) safety.
The declaration, by 28 countries and the European Union, was published on the opening day of the AI Safety Summit hosted at Bletchley Park, central England.
“The Declaration fulfils key summit objectives in establishing shared agreement and responsibility on the risks, opportunities and a forward process for international collaboration on frontier AI safety and research, particularly through greater scientific collaboration,” Britain said in a separate statement accompanying the declaration.
The declaration encouraged transparency and accountability from actors developing frontier AI technology on their plans to measure, monitor and mitigate potentially harmful capabilities.
“This is a landmark achievement that sees the world’s greatest AI powers agree on the urgency behind understanding the risks of AI – helping ensure the long-term future of our children and grandchildren,” British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said.
It set out a two-pronged agenda focused on identifying risks of shared concern and building the scientific understanding of them, and also building cross-country policies to mitigate them.
“This includes, alongside increased transparency by private actors developing frontier AI capabilities, appropriate evaluation metrics, tools for safety testing, and developing relevant public sector capability and scientific research,” the declaration said.
(Reporting by William James, writing by Farouq Suleiman, Editing by Sachin Ravikumar)
