It’s almost one year to the date that ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence-powered chatbot, was officially unveiled to the world by tech company OpenAI. The tool — which has since been further improved — represented a significant turning point not just in the development of AI, but it also prompted a sudden surge in public interest and uptake.

However, it also sparked deep fear, with international calls for artificial intelligence to be appropriately regulated amid its leaps and bounds. Because, while the technology offers a host of positive benefits, from driving scientific progress to productivity at work, there’s also the inverse: the countless risks regarding bias, inequality, safety, privacy, and security, as well as creative concerns regarding plagiarism and copyright.

Today, November 1st, a slew of high-profile attendees will descend on Buckinghamshire — and Bletchley Park, more specifically — for what prime minister Rishi Sunak has called “the first ever global AI safety summit.”

To ensure you get up to speed with the much-anticipated event, we’re providing the lowdown on the UK AI Summit, including what will be discussed and who’s tipped to attend. To provide a picture of what technology and business experts across the country want the outcomes from the summit to look like, we’ve also collected their insightful thoughts and opinions.

What Is the UK AI Summit — And What Will Be Discussed?

The UK AI Summit, which was first announced in June this year, is the coming-together of international governments, AI companies, civil society groups, and researchers. The main aims of the two-day summit are for the varying risks posed by AI to be collectively considered, and to discuss how they can be mitigated through co-ordinated action.

Topics for discussion include:

• The potential risks to global safety stemming from AI misuse, especially regarding biosecurity and cybersecurity.
• The plausible risks associated with AI’s integration into society, such as election disruption and the exacerbation of inequality.
• The possible risks concerning very advanced AI that has lost human control and oversight.
• What AI developers should do to scale their technology responsibly.
• What national policymakers, the international community, and the scientific community should do in relation to the risks and opportunities posed by AI.

Michelle Donelan, the science, innovation, and technology secretary, is to open the first day (November 1st) of the summit. Prime minister Rishi Sunak, meanwhile, is to convene groups on the summit’s second day (November 2nd) to discuss how to ensure AI is used as a force for good.

The event itself is being held at Bletchley Park, a rather fitting location for what Sunak has cited as “the first ever global AI safety summit.” The country house was once the top-secret headquarters for codebreakers during World War II, housing the Government Code and Cypher School (GC&CS), with the likes of Alan Turing being a part of the GC&CS team of codebreakers. It’s now cited as the “birthplace of modern computing.”

Who’s Attending the AI Safety Summit?

The UK AI Summit, while much-hyped and seemingly drawing international leaders, is to be a quite intimate affair. Technology and entrepreneurial expert Matt Clifford, who has helped lead the preparations for the summit alongside ex-deputy national security adviser Jonathan Black, stated recently that there will be a rather limited number of guests.

Clifford took to X early this month to announce that: “There’ll be about 100 attendees, roughly split between Cabinet ministers from around the world, CEOs of companies building AI at the frontier, academics, and representatives of international civil society. This means making very tough choices about invitations!”

While there’s no officially released list of confirmed attendees, there have been numerous reports and rumours over the last months and weeks. For instance, in terms of Big Tech presence, The Telegraph wrote that chief executives from OpenAI — the creator of ChatGPT — as well as other major AI labs Google Deepmind and Anthropic, are expected to be in attendance. Further, the publication stated that it’s anticipated that Meta and Microsoft will send their respective policy chiefs, and Google its head of technology and society. Elon Musk is also set to attend, The Guardian reported, with a conversation between him and Sunak to be hosted on X on Thursday night.

As for global governmental figures, U.S. vice president Kamala Harris will attend as well as deliver a “major policy speech on the Biden-Harris Administration’s vision for the future of AI,” the White House recently announced. Two of the European Union’s most senior officials — Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission’s president, and vice president Věra Jourová — will also visit the UK for the summit. Further, on October 26th, deputy prime minister Oliver Dowden announced that China has accepted Britain’s summit invitation, despite prevailing tech-oriented tensions between Western countries and China.

Regarding those not attending, Bloomberg had reported that Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz, and Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, won’t be there, citing people familiar with the matter. However, we will only truly know who’s attending the AI Safety Summit — and who isn’t — when Bletchley Park opens its doors.

What Specific Outcomes Is the Tech Industry Hoping For?

The ongoing debate surrounding artificial intelligence and its advancement and adoption could be best described as divisive. However, no matter the opinion you hold, there’s one thing that’s objectively true: AI is here to stay. As governmental and tech notables soon grapple with how to move forward with artificial intelligence, we’ve collected the thoughts of technology and business experts across the UK on what they hope the outcomes of today’s summit will be.

Ekaterina Almasque, OpenOcean

For Ekaterina Almasque, general partner at deeptech venture capital firm OpenOcean, she wants the major democratic nations to agree on a “flexible, principles-based framework” which tackles inherent issues but equally doesn’t hamper innovation.

“The development of AI has incredible potential to drive innovation and progress, but it also poses risks if not thoughtfully governed. We want to see an approach to AI governance that enables innovation while also establishing appropriate safeguards,” she said.

“A flexible, principles-based framework agreed upon by major democratic nations could strike the right balance. Prescriptive, heavy-handed regulations often lag behind the pace of technology and end up stifling progress. However, an agreement centred on ethical AI principles, transparency, accountability, and security could provide the right guardrails without hampering continued R&D.

“The key is encouraging ongoing collaboration between policymakers, researchers and industry leaders to keep updating governance as the technology evolves. Any rules or best practices adopted should remain voluntary to start, allowing room to gauge real-world impacts before considering firmer restrictions. The most important thing is that as this technology evolves, we continue monitoring its progress and hold open dialogues that ensure AI develops along the lines most beneficial to its end-users and society as a whole.”

Simon Thompson, GFT

Meanwhile, Simon Thompson, head of data science at digital transformation company GFT, would like to see a set of national-level regulations “rapidly brought into law” by participating countries, and “within the next few months.”

As he said: “My hope is that a realistic and well-informed picture of the opportunities and risks of AI technology is communicated to policymakers and that a pragmatic and useful agenda for immediate regulation is evolved that can be taken forward by all participating countries and businesses.

“We need a pragmatic and realisable agenda for regulation, this should be aimed at addressing the immediate harms and injustices that AI technology can facilitate as well as the benefits and this summit could produce that.

“AI regulation should look like a set of narrow, pragmatic, national-level regulations that can be rapidly brought into law, within the next few months. These regulations should, for a start, prohibit the distribution of unwatermarked AI-generated content, and impose requirements on the use and disclosure of training data for AI models that are used in public-facing APIs, services and software. This would allow citizens who have had their property appropriated by AI companies to identify this and to seek redress and would support collective bargaining for people from the creative industries to receive payment for their work.

“We also need legislation that ensures that workers are not abused in the process of creating AI models, there are some very distressing stories of people being terribly underpaid to train models, and of people who are forced by their circumstances to take work that exposes them to traumatic images and other content in the quest to make AI model behaviour more acceptable.”

Recommended reading

• What Does Frontier AI Mean for the Future of Regulation?
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• EHRC: UK’s Proposed AI Regulations “Do Not Go Far Enough”

Chris Vaughan, Tanium

Chris Vaughan, VP of technical account management EMEA at Tanium, also wants to see action regarding watermarked AI content — in addition to a strong response to risks such as a deepfakes. However, he believes “it’s unlikely that any statutory changes will happen immediately.”

“If I had the power to guarantee one outcome from the summit it would be mandatory tagging of AI generated content. Whether this is through a watermark, or another way, it’s vital that the average person can distinguish artificial content from reality,” he said.

“The most important point of discussion is how to protect the everyday person from AI. We’ve already seen dangerous applications that have the potential to impact society – like deepfakes and voice cloning. Deepfake videos of Sir Keir Starmer are a recent example of AI meddling with politics. There needs to be a strong response to this, before it gets out of hand.

“The summit appears to be more of a discussion, rather than a place that concrete decisions will be made. While guidance on the use of AI may be published soon after, it’s unlikely that any statutory changes will happen immediately. Passing new legislation is a lengthy process – so I wouldn’t expect any meaningful change for at least a few years.”

Rashik Parmar MBE, BCS

For Rashik Parmar MBE — the CEO of the British Computer Society (BCS) — who believes AI can be a real force for good, he wants the development and management of AI to be done by licensed experts who meet agreed-upon ethical standards.

As he said: “Over 1,300 technologists and leaders signed our open letter calling AI a force for good rather than an existential threat to humanity. AI won’t grow up like The Terminator. If we take the proper steps, it will be a trusted co-pilot from our earliest school days to our retirement.”

“One way to build that trust is for AI to be developed and managed by licensed professionals who meet international ethical standards. This is what we’d like to see agreed after the AI Safety Summit,” he continued.

Jason Tomlinson, RM Technology

Speaking of school days, Jason Tomlinson, managing director at RM Technology — which supplies technology and services to the education sector — hopes that the summit’s discussions will usher in a “bold” approach concerning AI safety in places of education.

“The AI summit represents a unique opportunity for the UK to set a global standard when it comes to AI safety in the classroom. To educate international education sectors on the opportunities and dangers, the government must take a bold stance on the need for proper training and regulation for schools. That means developing regulatory policies, leaning on the private sector’s expertise, and making teacher training schemes accessible,” he said.

“41% of teachers in the UK believe the government must intervene in the form of regulation. As such, this summit must mark the beginning of a wider investigation into AI’s role within the UK’s education system. At the moment, teachers lack the visibility and knowledge to understand how to keep students safe. As such, we’re at a crossroads where governments need to intervene and ensure students’ safety.”

Aidan Muller, Appraise Network

Rounding us out is Aidan Muller, the co-founder of the Appraise Network for AI professionals. He’d like to see plans and actions to tackle AI’s immediate threats, rather than crucial time being spent “discussing hypothetical doomsday scenarios.”

“Top of my wishlist would be sending a signal that we’re considering the actual threats that face us right here and now with appropriate urgency, along with concrete and realistic proposals to mitigate them,” he said. “Imminent threats like disinformation, cybercrime and illicit use of minors’ photos, for example. I’m less interested in the great and the good spending time discussing hypothetical doomsday scenarios.”

What Outcomes From the UK AI Summit Do You Want to See?

Many people — such as the experts mentioned above — are hoping for specific actions to come from the event. What are you wanting, in terms of outcomes? Feel free to let us know your thoughts, opinions, and wishes via LinkedIn or X.