Editorial | Potential risk posed by AI far from fiction
- World leaders agree artificial intelligence in the wrong hands could be a threat to humanity and have taken steps to avoid such a scenario
SkyNet, the world-destroying artificial intelligence system in the blockbuster movie The Terminator, might have been science fiction. But senior officials from around the world are taking the potential danger posed by AI to humanity seriously.
Even representatives from China and the United States, now locked in an arms race over AI development, shared the same stage at Britain’s AI safety summit this month. The outcome of the summit was the Bletchley Declaration, signed by both countries along with 26 others and the European Union.
The signatories agree to collectively manage potential risks through responsible collaboration, especially with respect to privacy, cybersecurity, online disinformation, biotechnology and future warfare. While the pledges are just that, without means to enforce them, they amount to a code of conduct that may provide a framework for more responsible development of frontier technology.
More exact guidelines will be drawn up at two more international AI safety summits in France and South Korea next year.
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How does China’s AI stack up against ChatGPT?
Some Chinese AI researchers have called for stronger regulations. They are among a group of leading international scientists who have proposed the creation of a global regulatory body empowered to audit AI systems of registered member institutions, mandatory budget allocation for safety research, and instant shutdown procedures to ensure no AI systems operate out of human control.
