SoKor, UK host AI summit with safety as top agenda

South Korea and Britain kick off a major international summit on artificial intelligence in Seoul this week, where governments plan to press tech firms on AI safety.

The meeting is a follow-up to the inaugural global AI safety summit at Bletchley Park in Britain last year, where dozens of countries voiced their fears to leading AI firms about the risks posed by their tech.

Safety is again on the agenda at the AI Seoul Summit starting Tuesday and representatives are expected from leading AI firms, including ChatGPT maker OpenAI, Google DeepMind, French AI firm Mistral, Microsoft and Anthropic.

“As with any new technology, AI brings new risks, including deliberate misuse from those who mean to do us harm,” South Korean President Yoon Suk Yeol and UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said Monday in a joint article.

“However, with new models being released almost every week, we are still learning where these risks may emerge,” they said in the piece, published by the South Korean daily JoongAng Ilbo and Britain’s i newspaper.

The stratospheric success of ChatGPT soon after its 2022 release sparked a gold rush in generative AI, with tech firms around the world pouring billions of dollars into developing their own models.