Rishi Sunak is set to sit down with Sundar Pichai, the head of Google, to discuss the future of artificial intelligence and the threats posed by it.
The British Prime Minister will hold a private meeting with the CEO of the American tech giant on Friday, as reported by Sky News.
According to a Downing Street source, the meeting would address on the challenges posed by AI and the UK as an investment destination for tech companies like Google.
The meeting will follow Sunak’s discussions with the heads of AI companies like ChatGPT creator, OpenAI, Anthropic and Google’s DeepMind this week.
On Wednesday, the Prime Minister spoke with AI leaders on the need for regulation to mitigate risks ranging from disinformation and national security to ‘existential threats’.
Sunak said that AI is the ‘defining technology of the time’ with the potential to ‘positively transform humanity’.
But a joint statement from the meeting acknowledged that the technology’s success is contingent on having the ‘right guardrails’ in place so the public can be confident it is safe.
Sunak stressed to OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Google’s Demis Hassabis and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei that the regulation must be agile and be co-ordinated internationally.
‘They discussed safety measures, voluntary actions that labs are considering to manage the risks, and the possible avenues for international collaboration on AI safety and regulation.’
Sunak has previously advocated the technology’s benefits for national security and the economy, but growing concerns have been raised about the unchecked use of AI.
Just this week, the creators of ChatGPT, cautioned against the harms of unregulated AI technology, likening it to the atom bomb.
In March, the UK government published a policy paper titled ‘A pro-innovation approach to AI regulation’ that aimed at striking a balance between regulation and innovation.
The government had planned to to use existing regulators in different sectors rather than giving responsibility for AI governance to a new single regulator. It’s unclear if those plans will change follwing this week’s meetings.
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