The United Kingdom hosted an AI Safety Summit on November 1-2 at Bletchley Park. The Summit brought together international governments, AI companies, civil society groups and research experts to consider the risks of AI and discuss AI risk mitigation through internationally coordinated action. 

The Bletchley park is of historical importance to the UK, as it is a location famous for enigma code breaking by Alan Turing's team during the Second World War. It is also regarded as the birthplace of modern computing. 

Approximately 100 world leaders, tech bosses, and AI experts worldwide attended the Summit. The Summit introduced two types of AI: frontier AI like LLMs and narrow AI with dangerous capabilities like bioengineering and two types of risks, which are loss of control risk and misuse risk, the latter including AI use in cyber or biological attacks. 

Speaking at the Summit, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated the purpose of the Summit. He said, "Nothing in our foreseeable future will be more transformative for our economies, societies and all our lives than the development of technologies like Artificial Intelligence. But as with every wave of new technology, it also brings new fears and dangers. So no matter how difficult it may be, it is the right and responsible long-term decision for leaders to address them".

In this story, let us look at the key takeaways of the AI Safety Summit.

Bletchley Declaration: The Bletchley Declaration exemplifies the idea of international diplomacy, where the countries join under the same roof to address the most intricate and transformative technological advancements of our time. It emphasizes the shared responsibilities of entities like governments, the private sector and the global community to ensure that AI is served for good. This focus on AI safety and responsible developments highlights the acknowledgement that AI's possible benefits should be harnessed better by mitigating AI-associated risks.

Placing AI Safety Institute: The UK Government confirmed during the Summit that its Frontier AI Task Force will evolve into the AI Safety Institute. The Institute will carefully test new types of frontier AI before and after they are released to address the potentially harmful capabilities of AI models, including exploring all the risks, from social harms like bias and misinformation to the most unlikely but extreme risk, such as humanity losing control of AI completely. In undertaking this research, the AI Safety Institute will look to work closely with the Alan Turing Institute as the national Institute for data science and AI. In launching the AI Safety Institute, the UK continues cementing its position as a world leader in AI safety.

Rajeev Chandrasekhar's speech: Speaking at the Summit, India's Minister of State for Electronics and IT stated India's perspective on Artificial Intelligence, emphasizing our nation's commitment to AI with a strong focus on safety, trust, and accountability. According to the minister, "Artificial Intelligence, as we see it, is a kinetic enabler of India's already accelerating and expanding digital economy, growth and Governance. AI represents big opportunities for us, and we have clear minds of what needs to be done to mitigate any potential downsides associated with AI or any emerging technology".

AI "State of the Science" report: The "Godfather of AI", Yoshua Bengio, will lead the first frontier AI "State of the Science" report, which will be a key input for those future summits. The report will provide a scientific assessment of existing research on the risks and capabilities of frontier AI and set out priority areas for further research on the risks and capabilities of frontier AI and set out priority areas for further research to inform future work on AI safety. 

UK invests in new AI supercomputer: At the Summit, the UK government announced a significant £225 million investment into a powerful new supercomputer called Isambard-AI. It will be built at the University of Bristol and is intended to be a chief breakthrough across healthcare, energy, climate modelling and other fields. Along with another planned supercomputer called Dawn, these systems are part of the UK's aim to lead in AI while partnering with allies like the US. This computer will be brought online next summer.