AI Summit 2020: Regulating AI for the common good

Artificial intelligence requires carefully considered regulation to ensure technologies balance cooperation and competition for the greater good, according to expert speakers at the AI Summit 2020. As a general purpose technology, artificial intelligence (AI) can be used in a staggering array of contexts, with many advocates framing its rapid development as a cooperative endeavour for the benefit of all humanity. The United Nations, for example, launched it's AI for Good initiative in 2017, while the French and Chinese governments talk of "AI for Humanity" and "AI for the benefit of mankind" respectively – rhetoric echoed by many other governments and supra-national bodies across the world. On the other hand, these same advocates also use language and rhetoric that emphasises the competitive advantages AI could bring in the more narrow pursuit of national interest. "Just as in international politics, there's a tension between an agreed aspiration to build AI for humanity, and for the common good, and the more selfish and narrow drive to compete to have advantage," said Allan Dafoe, director of the Centre for the Governance of AI at Oxford University, speaking at the AI Summit, which took place online this week.