During the session, the Foreign Secretary is set to call for international cooperation to appropriately manage the mixed implications of artificial intelligence amid its rapid development, not least when it comes to matters of international and national security.

The surge of interest in, adoption, and usage of artificial intelligence, spurred on by the release of ChatGPT by OpenAI in November last year, has prompted governments and regulators across the globe to scrutinise approaches of responsibly mitigating AI’s myriad risks in crucial areas such as defence and security, cybersecurity, privacy, and ethics.

However, clamping down on artificial intelligence with too much force could limit the inherent transformational benefits and positives that the technology brings and can continue to bring, and it’s this balancing act that the UK Government has stated that it’s aiming towards.

The Foreign Secretary himself is expected to say later: “Momentous opportunities – on a scale that we can barely imagine – lie before us.

“We must seize these opportunities and grasp the challenges of AI – including those for international peace and security – decisively, optimistically and from a position of global unity on essential principles.”

Further, “No country will be untouched by AI, so we must involve and engage the widest coalition of international actors from all sectors.

“The UK is home to many of the world’s trail-blazing AI developers and foremost AI safety researchers.

“So this autumn the UK plans to bring world leaders together for the first major global summit on AI safety.

“Our shared goal will be to consider the risks of AI and decide how they can be reduced through coordinated action.”

The global AI summit that’s planned to take place in Autumn — and is cited as the first major AI safety summit — was first announced by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak early last month.

Speaking on the announcement of the summit, the Prime Minister said: “No one country can do this alone. This is going to take a global effort. But with our vast expertise and commitment to an open, democratic international system, the UK will stand together with our allies to lead the way.”

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Both the Conservatives and Labour discuss the intersection of AI and security

While the Foreign Secretary visits the Security Council Chamber in New York, Shadow Home Secretary Yvette Cooper spoke in London yesterday about how AI is a particular concern regarding national security and how Labour would act if they were in power.

In an address to the Royal United Services Institute (Rusi), the Shadow Home Secretary mentioned that while technology creates new opportunities for Britain, new significant threats also arise and that “Generative AI takes this to a new level.”

As an example of how national security can be affected by AI, she referenced Jaswant Singh Chail, the first person to be convicted of treason since 1981. “Chail, who entered the grounds of Windsor Castle intent on assassinating the Queen on Christmas Day 2021, was spurred on by conversations generated by his ‘AI girlfriend’.”

She also referred to chatbots that were being created to help foster radical outlooks.

In response, the Shadow Home Secretary said that “Labour will criminalise those who purposely train chatbots to spout terrorist material, and we will work with the intelligence community and law enforcement on ways to stop radicalising chatbots that are inciting violence or amplifying extremist views.”