UK warns of risks posed by AI, calling for joint action

Britain's deputy prime minister said Friday that the world cannot afford to "become trapped" in debates about whether AI is a tool for good or ill.

Oliver Dowden said it will be a tool for both but there is a need to work on it "at great speed."

Artificial Intelligence is "a challenge that is already with us today, and which is changing, right now, all of our tomorrows. It is going to change everything we do … the way we live," Dowden told the annual UN General Assembly in New York.

He defined AI as "the biggest transformation the world has known," and said the task of governments on the issue should be to understand, grasp and seek to govern it but it should be done "at great speed."

Dowden said the world has already seen the dangers AI can pose: "Teens hacking individuals' bank details … terrorists targeting government systems … cyber criminals duping voters with deep-fakes and bots … even states suppressing their peoples."

"There is no future in which this technology does not develop at an extraordinary pace," he said.

AI strives to surpass human intelligence "in every possible way," which is just a few years away, Dowden said, citing experts working in the field. "The speed and scale demand leaders are clear-eyed about the implications and potential."

He cited AI developers, experts and academics: "Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war."

Dowden pointed out that he thinks leaders ignore expert consensus at the peril of all people.

Noting that the UK will host an AI Summit in November, the deputy premier said the aim of the meeting is to reach a common understanding of "these most extreme risks, and how the world should confront them ... and at the same time, focus on how safe AI can be used for public good."

"In particular we want to look at the most serious possible risks such as the potential to undermine our biosecurity or increase the ability of people to carry out cyberattacks as well as the danger of losing control of the machines themselves," he said.

The AI revolution will be "a bracing test" for the international community to show it can come together on an issue that will help "to define the fate of humanity," he added.

The summit will take place Nov. 1 - 2 in Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire, one of the birthplaces of computer science, the government said last month.