UK, US To Announce AI Safety Partnership

The United Kingdom and the United States are preparing to announce a bilateral deal on artificial intelligence safety during a summit in Buckinghamshire, England, this week.

According to Politico, the agreement will attempt to combine President Joe Biden’s recent executive order establishing new government offices and task forces with the U.K.’s “Frontier AI Taskforce.”

One anonymous U.S. official informed the outlet that Vice President Kamala Harris will unveil Washington’s AI Safety Institute under the Department of Commerce on Wednesday.

Britain, similarly, will announce its own.

“It will work to create guidelines, standards, and best practices for evaluating and mitigating the full spectrum of risks,” the U.S. official said, noting that both countries will “participate in information sharing and research collaboration.”

“We must address the full spectrum of risk, from potentially catastrophic risks to societal harms that are already happening, such [as] bias, discrimination, and the proliferation of misinformation,” they added.

The move comes after Biden signed the executive order on Monday requiring that developers of AI systems share safety test results and other critical information with the U.S. government.

In addition, the order attempts to protect U.S. citizens from AI-enabled fraud and deception and establishes a cybersecurity program to develop AI tools to fix potential vulnerabilities in critical software.

“Today’s executive order is another critical step forward in the governance of AI technology,” Microsoft President Brad Smith stated. “This order builds on the White House Voluntary Commitments for safe, secure, and trustworthy AI and complements international efforts through the G7 Hiroshima Process.”