Residents in Milton Keynes may notice a large police and security presence around Bletchley today and tomorrow, this is why…
Today (1 November) and tomorrow (2 November), the historic Bletchley Park is playing host to the world’s first AI Safety Summit.
The US, France, Singapore, Italy, Japan and China are among nations joining the UK government and tech leaders in talking about the risks and opportunities that Artificial Intelligence brings.
A full guest list has not been officially released however, the government has confirmed a list of organisations, including:
- Berkman Center for Internet & Society, Harvard University
- University of California, Berkeley
- University of Oxford
- University of Southern California
- University of Virginia
- African Commission on Human and People’s Rights
- AI Now Institute
- Alan Turing Institute
- Samsung Electronics
- Scale AI
- Sony
- Stability AI
- techUK
- Inflection AI
- Meta
- Microsoft
- Council of Europe
- European Commission
- Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence (GPAI)
- International Telecommunication Union (ITU)
- Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)
- UNESCO
- United Nations
The list also includes governments from around the world such as:
- Australia
- Brazil
- Canada
- China
- France
- Germany
- India
- Indonesia
- Ireland
- Israel
- Italy
- Japan
- Kenya
- Kingdom of Saudi Arabia
- Netherlands
- New Zealand
- Nigeria
- Republic of Korea
- Republic of the Philippines
- Rwanda
- Singapore
- Spain
- Switzerland
- Türkiye
- Ukraine
- United Arab Emirates
- United States of America
And world leaders such as Vice President Kamala Harris, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, China’s tech vice minister Wu Zhaohui and United Nations' Secretary-General Antonio Guterres are alleged to be attending.
There are also reports of Elon Musk being in attendance, either in person of virtually - with Musk and Rishi Sunak due to discuss AI on X, formally Twitter, on Thursday.
Due to it being such a major event, Thames Valley Police say a 'comprehensive security operation' is underway.
Residents would have noticed temporary restrictions and barriers in place around Bletchley.
Secretary of State for Technology, Michelle Donelan MP said:
AI is already an extraordinary force for good in our society, with limitless opportunity to grow the global economy, deliver better public services and tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges.
But the risks posed by frontier AI are serious and substantive and it is critical that we work together, both across sectors and countries to recognise these risks.
This summit provides an opportunity for us to ensure we have the right people with the right expertise gathered around the table to discuss how we can mitigate these risks moving forward. Only then will we be able to truly reap the benefits of this transformative technology in a responsible manner.
