World's First AI Summit: Altman and Nadella to Attend

OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and Microsoft (MS) CEO Satya Nadella, a major shareholder of OpenAI, are expected to attend the world's first AI Safety Summit led by the United Kingdom, which is at the forefront of global AI technology.

On the 15th (local time), Bloomberg News reported that a large number of world leaders, AI entrepreneurs, and experts from various countries will attend the AI Safety Summit scheduled for next month. Bloomberg stated, "Although the list of attendees has not yet been released, among the AI entrepreneurs, CEO Altman and CEO Nadella have been invited."

Among the leaders expected to attend are French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and European Union (EU) Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. U.S. President Joe Biden is not expected to attend, but Vice President Kamala Harris will deliver a speech in his place.

[Image source=Reuters Yonhap News]

The summit will be held over two days starting from the 1st of next month at Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire, UK. Bletchley Park is the birthplace of British computer science and was the site where the German military's Enigma code was deciphered during World War II. Alan Turing, a British genius mathematician who served as a wartime cryptanalyst, devised AI technology and predicted its widespread use through his 1950s paper on AI (Computing Machinery and Intelligence).

The UK government stated that the summit will discuss cooperation measures to share the risks of AI technology and derive a common approach to control it. Michelle Donelan, UK Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said, "The summit will focus on regulatory guardrails necessary for the safe development of AI." Major agenda items are expected to include the potential misuse of AI beyond human control, the possibility of manipulating and inciting public opinion in elections, and AI regulation issues from a national security perspective.

The summit is held ahead of next year’s super election year, when major countries have overlapping election schedules such as presidential and general elections. Starting with Taiwan’s presidential election on January 13, next year’s schedule includes the Russian presidential election on March 17, the Ukrainian presidential election on March 31, the EU Parliament President election on June 9, and the U.S. presidential election on November 5.

Governments worldwide are rushing to establish norms to find ways to control the explosively growing AI before it becomes a real threat to humanity. The White House plans to announce an executive order related to AI regulation within this year. To this end, the U.S. Congress held an "AI Insight Forum" last month, discussing AI regulatory measures with AI entrepreneurs and experts including CEO Altman, Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Google CEO Sundar Pichai, NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang, as well as labor representatives.

Ahead of the U.S., the European Union (EU) began concrete regulatory discussions and passed an AI regulation bill in the plenary session last June. The bill includes strong regulations holding companies that develop AI responsible if problems arise from services using large-scale AI.