UK’s AI Summit Faces Criticism over Big Tech Bias

Wider industry and society have criticized the UK government’s alleged bias toward’s Big Tech’s agenda at an upcoming artificial intelligence (AI) safety summit in Bletchley Park. An open letter penned to UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the conference neglects the people most affected by AI.

The letter was signed by 100 individuals and groups, including UK trade unions and rights group Amnesty International. It was coordinated by a UK campaign group Connected by Data and civil liberties advocate, the Open Rights Group.

UK Workers Decry Focus on Future Threats

The letter argues the summit is more focused on future threats AI poses rather than its immediate impact. According to Kate Bell, assistant secretary of the Trades Union Congress, AI is already impacting people in profound ways, making it imperative that they be privy to discussions around the future of AI.

“AI is already making life-changing decisions — like how we work, how we’re hired and who gets fired. It shouldn’t just be tech bros and politicians who get to shape the future of AI,” said Bell.

UK Members of Parliament (MPs) previously called on Sunak to help creatives get compensated for intellectual property that AI uses. Generative AI tools like ChatGPT, made by Open AI, allow people to create new content through humanlike prompts.

Read more: ChatGPT Review: Everything You Need to Know

High profile authors including George R.R. Martin and David Baldacci recently sued OpenAI for allegedly illegally using their work to train ChatGPT.

UK Criticized for Inviting China to AI Summit

Wednesday’s AI safety summit will attract a who’s who from government and tech circles, including executives from Microsoft, Google, OpenAI, and government representatives from China and the European Union. UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt recently visited US attendees ahead of the conference.

Read more: ChatGPT vs. Google Bard: A Comparison of AI Chatbots

Several prominent voices, including former UK Prime Minister Liz Truss, and Conservative MP Sir Iain Duncan Smith, have urged Sunak to reconsider China’s participation. Smith said in a recent Telegraph piece:

“Inviting China to participate in the AI summit sends the wrong message to both our international partners and academic institutions.”

Sunak previously said China would only attend a limited number of sessions. It would be a mistake to exclude one of the “world’s leading AI powers,” he insisted.

Recent reports revealed that Chinese professor Yi Zeng will lead a private discussion on the potential of AI tools to develop dangerous capabilities. His forum will also include prominent academics from several Chinese institutions, including Andrew Yao of Tsinghua University and Hongjiang Zhang of the Beijing Academy of Artificial Intelligence.

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