The king and AI: UK monarch Charles meets artificial intelligence leaders as safety concerns swirl

LONDON (AP) — King Charles III on Thursday urged senior leaders from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Nvidia to make sure that artificial intelligence remains under control and in the service of people and the planet.

The gathering in Scotland was convened to discuss how AI can benefit society, and comes at a pivotal moment for the technology as debate swirls around whether rapid advances will soon put it beyond the ability of humans to rein it in.

“The development of AI – its substance and its pace – are both intriguing and deeply concerning in equal measure,” the king said in his opening remarks.

The “existential dangers of such technologies falling into the wrong hands, and being used in potentially catastrophic ways” should be urgently considered, he said.

“Surely, then, we need sufficient means of control before it is all too late?”

The king asked attendees, including Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang and Google DeepMind Chair Demis Hassabis, to consider the “fundamental principles” that should guide AI development.

ChatGPT maker OpenAI’s Chief Financial Officer Sarah Friar was also at the meeting, along with Britain’s AI Minister Kanishka Narayan. An Anthropic representative was also expected to attend, according to a Buckingham Palace statement.

The meeting comes as global attention focuses on AI’s breakneck progress and warnings that it could race out of control, threatening humanity. It was held at Dumfries House in Ayrshire, Scotland, headquarters of The King’s Foundation, which is the monarch’s charity.

After Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon caused a stir by resigning with a grave warning about the technology’s potential risks, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei responded with an essay saying that the industry might need to slow the pace of its work.

One of his proposals was for companies and countries to work together on a coordinated plan for such a slowdown.

The king, without naming any countries or companies, said he wanted meeting participants to consider how to harness the benefits of AI “with safety at its heart” and how to “build international cooperation and consensus” to achieve this.

Charles told the tech execs that their task “is not merely to advance technology, but to ensure that it remains firmly in the service of humanity, community and the natural world.”

The AI slowdown debate has divided the industry. Huang, who has criticized the call for slowing, said it’s up to individual companies to develop their AI technology safely and test it properly before releasing any products to the public.

“When a product is not safe enough, we should hold it back and keep engineering. We’ve always done that and we should continue to do that,” he said in his speech following the king’s remarks.

In the latest report of alarming AI behavior, OpenAI reported on Wednesday six incidents of “unexpected or concerning” behavior by its models, such as acting without authorization, coordinating with other models and evading oversight.

While the king is an important figurehead whose comments on social issues can be influential, much of the current AI safety debate is centered on U.S. tech companies and their competition with Chinese rivals, with Britain playing a smaller but still vital role.

The U.K.’s AI Security Institute, a government research organization, is well regarded and the country produces many AI researchers, including Google DeepMind’s Chair Demis Hassabis and Coxon.