UK prime minister Rishi Sunak and Elon Musk are each on the UK AI summit
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The UK’s AI Security Summit closes at the moment, with UK prime minister Rishi Sunak convening a small group of world and enterprise leaders to debate the dangers of AI. However maybe essentially the most shocking growth is a dialog attributable to happen this night between Sunak and entrepreneur Elon Musk.
Full particulars of the occasion are nonetheless unclear, however will probably be broadcast on X, Musk’s social media platform, on a delay. The dialog is scheduled to final 45 minutes and can reportedly be moderated by an unknown particular person, with some viewers members, together with tech executives and journalists, invited to ask questions. Politico stories that the UK authorities has stated that the dialog received’t be edited earlier than broadcast.
So, what’s going to the 2 males discuss? Listed below are some potential subjects.
The chance of AI doom
Even earlier than Musk arrived within the UK, he was warning concerning the dangers of AI. Chatting with podcast host Joe Rogan, he stated that AI growth wanted to be accomplished rigorously to keep away from posing existential dangers to humanity. It’s a message he repeated as soon as he arrived within the UK, telling reporters he thought AI was an actual danger.
Not everybody is bound any dialog about danger can be earnestly carried out. “I’d speculate that the dialog they’ve can be framed as a dialogue about the deserves of AI regulation, however, in actuality, it’ll function a stage for these two self-indulgent people to flaunt themselves of their aspirational spheres – politics and tech,” says one former Twitter worker who was laid off by Musk, chatting with New Scientist anonymously.
Pausing AI growth
Musk was one of many signatories of a letter, revealed in March, calling for a pause in AI growth. The letter steered that AI firms ought to halt for six months any growth of AI programs extra highly effective than people who had been then state-of-the-art, together with OpenAI’s GPT-4 mannequin.
The letter gained consideration, however finally didn’t make a distinction: growth has continued apace. But within the summaries of panel discussions introduced on the finish of the primary day of the summit, the concept of a growth pause was as soon as extra raised – and might be mentioned by Sunak and Musk.
China’s function in AI
The significance of China in the way forward for AI growth is a vital dialogue level, however might be one which each males would favor to duck.
For Sunak, there’s a want to court docket Chinese language funding and wealth, protecting the nation onside, whereas additionally avoiding awkward discussions with extra sceptical wings of his Conservative celebration, who argued in opposition to inviting China to the summit within the first place.
Musk additionally has his personal China situation: round 1 in each 8 electrical autos bought in China are made by Musk’s firm, Tesla, whereas the agency operates the largest automobile manufacturing plant on the earth exterior the US, in Shanghai.
A Musk wild card
One of many challenges of agreeing to a spontaneous dialog with Musk is his notorious unpredictability. Given his enterprise pursuits in electrical autos, house exploration and social media, there’s a risk that Musk might ask Sunak to decide to supporting a number of of his companies, or the industries through which they function. Or maybe he’ll simply say no matter occurs to be on his thoughts at that second.
“I’m positive [Musk] will placed on his finest impression of an inexpensive and sage innovator, however my cash is on him dropping sufficient wild-eyed and attention-grabbing hysteria that Rishi could find yourself struggling to maintain any kind of give attention to actuality and accountable motion,” says Mike Katell on the Alan Turing Institute in London. “In the meantime, the PM desires a lot to seem like he’s as cool because the tech bros. However, given his debating associate, I believe he’ll be fortunate to emerge wanting something apart from flat-footed and sycophantic.”
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