President Yoon: "Safe, Innovative, and Inclusive AI Ecosystem is Important"... Adoption of Seoul Declaration (Comprehensive)

Yoon Chairs Main Session at 'AI Seoul Summit'
"Promoting Establishment of Korean AI Safety Institute"
Joining Network to Strengthen Global AI Safety

President Yoon Suk-yeol is delivering the opening remarks at the 'AI Seoul Summit' held via video conference at the Blue House's State Guest House on the 21st. [Image source=Yonhap News]

President Yoon Suk-yeol emphasized on the 21st the importance of cooperation among the government, private sector, academia, and civil society, as well as cross-border and interdisciplinary collaboration, to foster a safe, innovative, and inclusive artificial intelligence (AI) ecosystem. He also indicated that South Korea plans to join the global AI safety network by promoting the establishment of an AI Safety Research Institute.

On the same day, President Yoon co-chaired the 'AI Seoul Summit' main session with UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at the Blue House State Guesthouse and stated in his opening remarks, "South Korea will harmoniously pursue AI safety, innovation, and inclusion as a responsible member of the international community."

The AI Seoul Summit is a follow-up meeting to the AI Safety Summit held last November at Bletchley Park in the UK and is held over two days starting that evening. Representatives from Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU), France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, the UK, and the United States participating in the summit adopted the 'Seoul Declaration for Safe, Innovative, and Inclusive AI' and the 'Seoul Intentions for International Cooperation on AI Safety Science.' Companies attending the meeting also joined the 'Frontier AI Safety Pledge.'

The Seoul Declaration includes ▲ the importance of interoperable security measures ▲ expanding networks among national AI safety research institutes and promoting global cooperation ▲ commitment to policy development and governance establishment to create a safe, innovative, and inclusive AI ecosystem ▲ and the necessity of participation from various stakeholders, including companies.

Participating country representatives agreed in the 'Seoul Declaration' that AI safety, innovation, and inclusion are interconnected goals and that it is important to include these priorities in international discussions on AI governance to address the broad opportunities and challenges posed or potentially posed by AI design, development, deployment, and use.

They also recognized the importance of interoperability between AI governance systems aligned with a risk-based approach to maximize AI benefits and address broad risks, and committed to continuing to focus on supporting the operation of the Hiroshima Process International Code of Conduct for organizations developing advanced AI systems.

Call to Strengthen International Cooperation to Enhance AI Safety, Innovation, and Inclusion

Furthermore, they agreed to use human-centered AI to solve international challenges and cooperate to uphold democratic values, the rule of law, human rights, fundamental freedoms, and privacy protection and promotion. They also shared the recognition of improving human welfare by bridging the digital divide. They called for strengthening international cooperation to enhance AI safety, innovation, and inclusion to support the practical use of AI, including progress toward the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals.

The heads of state reached a consensus that safety, innovation, and inclusion are goals AI should pursue and discussed how to concretely realize them. The attending leaders and CEOs of global companies brainstormed ways to minimize AI risks while maximizing its potential through free research and development (R&D), ensuring that the benefits created are equitably shared by all humanity.

President Yoon Suk-yeol is attending the 'AI Seoul Summit' via video conference at the Blue House's State Guest House on the 21st. [Image source=Yonhap News]

Yoon: "AI Risks and Opportunities Must Be Balanced"

In particular, President Yoon presented safety, innovation, and inclusion as the three core normative values of AI. According to a written briefing by Kim Soo-kyung, spokesperson for the Presidential Office, President Yoon evaluated that through this AI Seoul Summit, the various efforts made by the Korean government and the international community to establish new digital norms have converged, advancing global AI governance to a new level.

In his closing remarks, President Yoon mentioned that through today's meeting, the heads of state reached a consensus on the three goals of AI safety, innovation, and inclusion, and shared the basic direction that AI risks and opportunities must be balanced. He explained that the Seoul Declaration is a summit-level agreement, which is significant as it elevates the ministerial-level agreement achieved at Bletchley Park.

President Yoon added, "The AI Summit is establishing itself as a leading platform for building global AI governance, and we look forward to the leadership of France, the next host country." The Presidential Office emphasized the significance of this meeting, stating, "With this summit, the first agreement among heads of state, including the Seoul Declaration, was reached, and the agenda expanded from safety to innovation and inclusion, positioning the AI Summit as the only summit-level platform discussing comprehensive AI governance."

Participants in this summit included US Vice President Kamala Devi Harris, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Singapore Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Japanese Prime Minister Fumio Kishida, Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, EU Vice-President Vera Jourova, UN Secretary-General Ant?nio Guterres, and OECD Secretary-General Mathias Cormann.

Representing global AI companies were Eric Schmidt, founder of the Schmidt Foundation; Demis Hassabis, chairman of Google DeepMind; Dario Amodei, chairman of Anthropic; Lee Jae-yong, chairman of Samsung Electronics; Lee Hae-jin, founder of Naver; Arthur Mensch, chairman of Mistral AI; Anna Makanju, vice president of OpenAI; Brad Smith, president of Microsoft (MS); David Zapolski, vice chairman of Amazon Web Services; Nick Clegg, president of Meta; and Elon Musk, founder of xAI.