AI summit UK: Elon Musk and Rishi Sunak at Bletchley Park, by Donovan Reynolds and Ann Smith.
The perception of Artificial Intelligence (AI) revolves around its potential to revolutionize lives through improved efficiency, productivity, and decision-making processes. AI has the capacity to automate tasks, reduce costs, increase accuracy, and develop innovative solutions. However, there are concerns in terms of potential misuse of AI technologies, job displacement and ethical dilemmas, with critics warning about the risks of bias, privacy breaches, and the loss of human control over critical systems, emphasizing the need for robust regulation and ethical frameworks to mitigate these risks.
So, the British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak call for an AI summit to address the growing need for the UK to stay at the forefront of AI development, is in line with the government's strategy for technological innovation and economic growth. The summits aim was to foster collaboration between the public and private sectors, facilitate AI research and development, and discuss potential regulatory frameworks to ensure responsible AI implementation across various industries.
Bletchley Park and Codebreaking.
The impressive Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire became Britain’s codebreaking centre during World War II. The site is 80 km north-west of London, near a railway line that served both Oxford and Cambridge universities. It is a huge site with a Victorian Manor house and 58 acres of grounds. The British government acquired it in 1938 as a station of the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), designated as Station X. in 1939 there were 200 workers, but by late 1944 it had a staff of nearly 9,000, working in three shifts twenty-four hours every day.
Alastair Denniston was a brilliant codebreaker who was chosen to head up this assignment. Denniston realized that cracking new codes such as the Germans’ machine-based Enigma system meant putting together a team of individuals with advanced mathematical skills, puzzle solvers, chess players, bridge addicts. He recruited these from Cambridge and Oxford and began a cryptography course to begin their training.
What's happening in Bletchley Park now.
Last week the British Prime Minister, Rishi Sunak was in the very same Bletchley Park, heading a two-day summit to discuss the impact of Artificial Intelligence with World leaders and technology World players, including Elon Musk. It appears that Sunak is keen to befriend the tech representatives that he’s hanging out with on X (Twitter) at a live streamed event after the summit.
Prior to this summit, he delivered a speech about the risks of AI if weaponized by terrorists and cybercriminals, and he published “frontier AI” documents, an industry term for generative AI tools such as Chat GPT and DALL-E. Amongst his initiatives, he has developed an institute for UK AI safety.
Oxford university AI expert Matthias Holweg, Professor of Operations Management, Saïd Business School, University of Oxford, commented critically on the Bletchley Park summit describing the UK impact of in shaping ai regulation on the global stage as insignificant. According to him:
The debate on AI regulation very often descends into pointing to existential risks, but those fears are misplaced. We are several key development stages away for AI to become that powerful or go out of control, without any credible path to how AI could ever become sentient. The clear and present danger . . . is that these systems decide on the access to essential services, like finance or education. If we don’t ensure AI systems conform prior to being launched, we risk excluding and/or exploiting certain parts of the population. And in the worst case, propagate existing biases into the future, under the radar.. . UK efforts to develop its own AI regulation are laudable, they miss the point that firms will seek to complying with one global standard, rather than having to deal with several competing standards in the regions they operate in. In that sense it is the EU AI Act that everyone looks to as setting that global standard. What the UK may or may not decide, is irrelevant to most AI operators. AI regulation will be decided between the US lawmakers, the EU, and the big tech firms.
What was addressed at the AI summit?
Amongst the subjects up for discussion, Sunak is considering outdated IT systems within the UK government:
' . . . the government’s ageing computer systems are an “accident waiting to happen”; ministers admitted they do not know the cost of patching up old IT. The opposition urged the Tory government to fix up systems from the 1980s, 1990s and 2000s – warning they could be vulnerable to cyber attack. Recent government data showing that almost 12,000 NHS computers are still using outdated Windows 7 systems, leaving them potentially vulnerable to hackers.(The Independent, 02/11/2023).
Sunak is also rightfully concerned about the risk that AI pose to young people. He said, “I believe there will be nothing more transformative to the futures of our children and grandchildren than technological advances like AI. We owe it to them to ensure AI develops in a safe and responsible way, gripping the risks it poses early enough in the process.”
He asserts that holding this summit is a priority in that his government has, “ . . . taken a lead, globally, in making sure that we can protect the British public against these risks, so that we can focus on getting the benefits of AI for our families, and health and education.”
Most interesting to many is Rishi Sunak's discussion at the AI summit with the billionaire Elon Musk, a divisive man in terms of his power and sometimes contentious views. Musk is a South African entrepreneur and businessman. Some of the companies that he founded include PayPal, SpaceX, and Tesla Motors and he is the wealthiest man in the world, best described as a 'Master Entrepreneur': After the Internet Boom occurred, Musk began building his businesses, including PayPal in 1999,created to send and receive money digitally; 3 years later this was sold for more than a billion dollars. In 2004, Musk invested in Tesla, an electric car company, and became its co-founder and CEO. In 2002, Musk founded SpaceX, this company builds spacecraft for commercial space travel. In less than six years, NASA gave SpaceX a contract to transport cargo to and from the International Space Station (ISS). In 2012, Musk and SpaceX launched the Falcon 9 rocket into space to the ISS with 1,000 pounds of supplies for the astronauts there.
Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk have much in common: both are very wealthy, privileged men from non-European backgrounds. Both are in powerful positions on the world stage, together they could impact the development of AI. I suspect that Sunak has yet to prove his worth having resided as UK Prime Minister for just over one year. He is not viewed positively by a majority of UK voters right now who predominantly focus on his personal wealth and lack of empathy for the 'average' working family facing financial difficulties. Elon Musk faces inevitable criticism, as he has created and contributed to many contentious and influential projects such as SpaceX and amassed huge wealth in the process. In the New York Times, David Brooks writes that Elon Musk has a 'saviour' complex:
“Musk’s self-conception is that he is building companies to save humanity . . . SpaceX is to make humans a multiplanetary species, so we can escape to Mars if something apocalyptic happens to earth. Tesla’s mission is to move humanity past a hydrocarbon economy, toward a sustainable future. His new firm x AI is there to help prevent artificial intelligence from taking over the world. Neuralink, which embeds technology into people’s brains, is there to help the blind see and the paralyzed walk. You can’t get more savior-like than that,” (September 2023).
It is difficult to anticipate the impact of this British AI summit, outside of the photo opportunity for a meeting between Rishi Sunak and the world's wealthiest man, Elon Musk. This meeting was broadcast live on the Space x media platform for the world to see.
Their conversation began with Sunak asking, 'What are the potential risks of AI?' Musk's response was that most AI software is safe but digital super-intelligence does pose a risk to the public. He suggested the need for an impartial 'referee' to control such software. He recommended that the three powers of the U.S., China and the U.K. must align to create standards for AI safety. Musk praised Sunak for inviting Chinese representatives to the summit. The conversation continued with reference to 'open source' models; both Sunak and Musk were fluent in their understanding of this.
The inevitable impact of AI on normal work practices was discussed, with Musk asserting that AI is smarter than the smartest human. He is sure that there will be no requirement for humans to toil in the future because AI will have the ability to educate, complete repetitive tasks and even befriend those who struggle with relationships! Sunak's response that work gives a person meaning in their life was dismissed by Musk who answered that humans will continue to compete in sports, maybe the sport of 'best human'.
Final Thoughts.
A more sobering account is that governments around the world, including China, will increasingly focus on establishing comprehensive regulatory frameworks and national AI strategies to promote transparency, accountability, and ethical AI deployment. Emphasis on AI ethics, international collaboration, and public-private partnerships is expected, with a parallel investment in AI education and workforce development. At the same time, safeguarding against the unforeseen and unintended consequences of AI, must be a priority.
The UK Artificial Intelligence summit was a useful event in terms of high-level discussion around AI safety; we at Kingstonmouth support the Government's decision to invite Chinese representatives and Elon Musk to contribute. Unfortunately, we also recognize that the UK is just a small player in a huge unwieldy world-wide game. We agree with Matthius Holweg statement that, 'What the UK may or may not decide, is irrelevant to most AI operators. AI regulation will be decided between the US lawmakers, the EU, and the big tech firms.'
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