AI threat brings together China, USA and Elon Musk in meeting – 10/31/2023 – Market

“They accepted,” replied British Deputy Prime Minister Oliver Dowden to the BBC, regarding the invitation made to China for a world meeting on artificial intelligence. It takes place this Wednesday (1st) and Thursday in Bletchley Park, near London, in the same place where mathematician Alan Turing and others decoded the German Enigma machine in 1941.

The United States also accepted the invitation, but must send vice-president Kamala Harris. The Prime Minister’s spokesman was even asked if Rishi Sunak felt “snubbed” by Joe Biden and other absent leaders, and the answer was “no way”. China is expected to send a delegation headed by vice minister of science and technology, Wu Zhaohui.

Among other multilateral organizations, the UN Secretary-General, António Guterres, will be present, who a few days ago established a group of experts to deal with AI. Sunak had said at the meeting that he would support the creation of a body for the issue, such as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, formed in 1988 by the UN.

Attention at the meeting, without Biden and other politicians, such as Frenchman Emmanuel Macron, should turn to businesspeople such as Elon Musk, from Tesla, who has been advocating greater regulation of AI, and Sam Altman, from OpenAI, who raised the fever over AI question when launching ChapGPT a year ago. Also expected to participate are Brad Smith, from Microsoft, and Nick Glegg, from Meta.

There will also be scientists considered fundamental to the development of AI, such as Frenchman Yann LeCun and Canadian of French origin Yoshua Bengio, both winners of the Turing award, aimed at advances in computer science. LeCun has been questioning the apocalyptic scenarios about AI outlined by, among others, Musk.

Among the Chinese are Yi Zeng, from the Chinese Academy of Sciences, who is expected to head a panel on tools that can “unexpectedly develop dangerous capabilities”, Andrew Yao, from Tsinghua University, and Ya-Qin Zhang, former technology director at Baidu, which launched Ernie Bot, a chatbot compared to ChatGPT.

Both Beijing and Washington rushed with their first guidelines for artificial intelligence before the meeting, seeking to get ahead of it and vying for primacy.

China presented its AI Global Governance Initiative at the Belt and Road Forum two weeks ago, advocating “developing norms and standards based on broad consensus.” In a press conference on Monday (30), the foreign ministry spokesperson stated that, with this, Xi Jinping “demonstrated China’s leadership role in global AI governance.”

Also on Monday, Biden signed alongside Kamala Harris a decree with standards and principles designed to ensure that the US “leads the way” in regulation. It’s more than “any government anywhere in the world” has done, the president said. “It is America that can build consensus, like no other country,” added the vice president.

China came out a little ahead by enacting temporary measures in August — while it prepares legislation — such as requiring AI products to be reviewed by the government before they hit the market. The American decree demands something similar, access to security tests carried out by companies. And both require privacy and national security protection.

But the expectation is that, with Musk and others, the British event will not focus on immediate practical issues, focusing instead on the long-term risks of artificial intelligence, extreme scenarios. Sunak announced a live with the businessman, via X, on Thursday night, after the work was finished. The fear is that Musk will hijack the narrative of the meeting.