Bletchley Park earned a place for itself in history for being the site where Allied codebreakers worked tirelessly to break the Nazi Enigma Code. Recently, it hosted yet another crucial meeting of the global fraternity to find a way out of another enigmatic threat: Artificial Intelligence. The world’s first ever AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park, which was attended by 28 countries, including, among others, the United States of America, China, Japan, the United Kingdom and India, was unanimous in its decision that global, consensual action is necessary to protect lives and livelihood against the disruptive potential of this new technology. This cautious mood is, in fact, representative of the collective temperament. The US president recently signed an executive order that not only favours the exercising of government oversight on AI but also requires companies to share the test results of new products with federal agencies. The European Union is proposing a case-by-case evaluation of AI on the basis of its invasive character while China has also opted for regulation. Interestingly, business and government seem to be speaking in one voice on the matter: tech titans, fearful of unregulated progress being made in AI laboratories, have called for a six-month freeze on AI development. India, too, seems to have sensed the drift, with the prime minister demanding the expansion of a global framework on ethical AI technologies.
This conservative approach is not unwarranted. It is better to err on the side of caution on an evolving technology than let it run amok in the name of the freedom of application. Incidentally, human society is still bearing the brunt of the latent damages inflicted by social media that has been weaponised by vested interests. It must be borne in mind that the disruptive power of AI is estimated to be much greater than that of social media. But there must also be a fine line in regulation. Otherwise, the beneficial potential of emerging technologies would remain unharnessed. For instance, AI is expected to create new jobs and has revolutionary implications for several sectors, including science, medicine and businesses. World leaders must find a way of maximising the benefits of AI while minimising its deleterious consequences through regular consultation and cooperation.