King Charles III will host representatives of leading AI companies for a gathering in Scotland, a source close to the event said Monday, as concerns grow over the risks posed by the rapidly advancing technology.
The event intends to explore how artificial intelligence can benefit society, the source added.
It will be held at the Dumfries House estate, home to Charles’ charity the King’s Foundation in the Scottish countryside.
The meeting comes as a fierce debate rages over whether the development of AI should be slowed, despite US President Donald Trump and key allies pushing back on Sunday against calls to tap the brakes.
Other sources close to the Scotland gathering, whose date has not be announced but is expected soon, indicated that Google DeepMind will be represented by its chief Demis Hassabis — and OpenAI by the company’s chief financial officer Sarah Friar.
Representatives from Nvidia and Anthropic are also expected to attend.
The Sunday Times reported that the event will be overseen by the Ditchley Foundation focused on addressing global challenges.
The newspaper said the British charity has drafted a charter to include a “shared set of principles” that it hopes can be agreed upon.
They would “help guide the future application of AI, not merely as a driver of capability and efficiency, but as a tool that upholds human dignity and contributes to the flourishing of both people and the planet”, it added.
– Increased warnings –
A furore erupted this month after a researcher publicly resigned from Anthropic over fears that the technology could escape human control.
Another Anthropic employee, who did not resign, stated publicly that “we really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans”, and that he thought the chances were greater than “10 percent within the next decade”.
Amid the outcry, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday called for AI companies to “pace the frontier” — or coordinate a slowdown in the technology’s development — to allow a better understanding of the risks arising.
His chief competitors, xAI’s Elon Musk and OpenAI’s Sam Altman, publicly supported him.
UN rights chief Volker Turk on Monday called for urgent action to rein in “frontier” AI, warning that the technology poses “unprecedented risks”.
In the UK, new AI legislation is needed “to address the scale and seriousness of threats posed to human rights” by the technology, a cross-party group of lawmakers warned in a report published Monday.
“Nowhere in the world… has a current legislative and regulatory approach to AI that is fit for purpose,” said Alex Sobel, chairman of the Joint Committee on Human Rights, which wrote the report.
Reacting to the study, Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s spokesperson acknowledged that “we shouldn’t assume that the existing framework will always be sufficient”.
However, “AI offers huge opportunities that we want the UK to tap into, from transforming our public services, improving living standards, and creating new jobs”, they added.
By Agencies
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