Global declaration stresses need for AI safety testing

A landmark international declaration on AI safety by the world’s leading powers has warned of the need for “appropriate evaluation metrics” and “tools for safety testing.”

The rise of generative AI like ChatGPT has raised concerns among world powers. Picture: Pixabay

The 'Bletchley Declaration' was published by 28 countries including the US, UK, China and the European Union.

The declaration was published on the opening day of the AI Safety Summit hosted by Britain at Bletchley Park in central England. The summit aims to increase global cooperation on ensuring the safe development of AI technologies, Reuters reported

The summit comes amid growing concerns among governments globally about the potential misuse of AI tools following the release of powerful AI tools such as ChatGPT. 

According to the wording of the declaration, the participating countries offered a two-pronged approach to achieving this. The first aspect involves identifying risks of shared concern and building the scientific understanding of them, and the second aspect involves building cross-country policies to mitigate against these risks.

The declaration said: "This includes, alongside increased transparency by private actors developing frontier AI capabilities, appropriate evaluation metrics, tools for safety testing, and developing relevant public sector capability and scientific research."

"This is a landmark achievement that sees the world's greatest AI powers agree on the urgency behind understanding the risks of AI – helping ensure the long-term future of our children and grandchildren," said British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak.