Governments around the globe sprung into action last week as they met in the UK to chart a path forward on regulating the "menace" of AI, but not without a bit of posturing from the US.
Just days before leaders from China, the EU, and the UN were scheduled to meet in an AI summit
And THAT was signaling something. Maybe Biden wanted everyone to know that they could do their thing, but America was going to grab onto its AI rockets and blast off into space.
Perhaps this is why the American president did not show up at the historic meeting of governments organized by the UK's Rishi Sunak at Bletchley Park—home to the codebreakers responsible for turning the tide of war for the Allies in the Second World War. Instead, Vice President Kamala Harris attended the gathering, joined by a relatively lower-ranking official from
Now, a lot happened at the meeting, but questions remain on how much of it actually matters, particularly for the UK which has been desperately trying to take center stage on AI. So much so that it hosted the AI summit and pulled off what others might have thought impossible: getting the US and China to agree on something (more on that in just a bit).
Still, if there were any lingering doubts on whether the US was going to cede any space in AI to other nations, Kamala Harris was quick to dispel them by
Now, politicking aside, a couple of things to note from the AI summit: nations present at the gathering signed an agreement to combat the "catastrophic" risks the technology could pose, particularly from the so-called frontier AI models like the ones developed by companies such as OpenAI, and agreed to meet again next year to discuss more.
As expected, the tech company at large called out the moral panic over AI and weren't all too excited about governments wanting to regulate the why, what, and how of the technology under the guise of safety. “New technologies always lead to hype. They often lead to excessive zeal amongst the advocates and excessive pessimism amongst the critics," Meta's president of global affairs Nick Clegg said.
Still, that didn't stop Elon Musk from
Regardless of whether the summit was a
Let's hope it doesn't turn nasty.
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