TechScape: The people charged with making sure AI doesn't destroy humanity have left the building

I'm in Seoul for the International AI summit, the half-year follow-up to last year's Bletchley Park AI safety summit (the full sequel will be in Paris this autumn). While you read this, the first day of events will have just wrapped up – though, in keeping with the reduced fuss this time round, that was merely a "virtual" leaders' meeting. When the date was set for this summit – alarmingly late in the day for, say, a journalist with two preschool children for whom four days away from home is a juggling act – it was clear that there would be a lot to cover. The inaugural AI safety summit at Bletchley Park in the UK last year announced an international testing framework for AI models, after calls … for a six-month pause in development of powerful systems. There has been no pause. The Bletchley declaration, signed by UK, US, EU, China and others, hailed the "enormous global opportunities" from AI but also warned of its potential for causing "catastrophic" harm.