The United Kingdom will hold a global artificial intelligence (AI) summit this autumn to assess the technology's "most significant risks."

A number of alarming warnings have been issued concerning the possibly existential threat that AI poses to humans, reports BBC.

Regulators throughout the world are trying to create new laws to mitigate that danger.

Prime Minister Rishi Sunak stated that he wants the United Kingdom to lead efforts to guarantee that the advantages of artificial intelligence are "harnessed for the good of humanity."

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"AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better, but we need to make sure it is developed and used in a way that is safe and secure," he said.

The summit's attendees are currently unknown, but the UK government stated that it will "bring together key countries, leading tech companies, and researchers to agree on safety measures to evaluate and monitor the most significant risks from AI."

Speaking to reporters in Washington, DC, where Sunak is meeting with President Biden on the matter, the prime minister stated that the UK was the "natural place" to lead the discourse on AI.

Downing Street pointed to the prime minister's recent talks with the CEOs of key AI businesses as proof of this. It also mentioned the 50,000 individuals engaged in the sector, which is worth £3.7 billion to the UK.

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'Too ambitious'

Some have questioned the UK's ability to lead in this sector.

According to Yasmin Afina, a research fellow at Chatham House's Digital Society Initiative, the UK "could realistically be too ambitious."

She stated that the EU and US had "stark differences in governance and regulatory approaches" that the UK would struggle to reconcile, as well as a number of existing global efforts, such as the UN's Global Digital Compact, that had "stronger foundational bases already."

Afina went on to say that the UK was home to none of the world's most innovative AI startups.

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"Instead of trying to play a role that would be too ambitious for the UK and risks alienating it, the UK should perhaps focus on promoting responsible behaviour in the research, development and deployment of these technologies," she told the BBC.

Deep unease

Since the chatbot ChatGPT first came on the scene in November, astounding people with its ability to answer complicated queries in a human-sounding manner, interest in AI has skyrocketed.

It can do so because of the enormous processing capacity of AI systems, which has sparked widespread concern, the report said.

Geoffrey Hinton and Prof Yoshua Bengio, two of the three so-called godfathers of AI, have been among those to issue concerns about how the technology they helped design has a high potential for disaster.

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These concerns have fueled calls for effective AI legislation, while many uncertainties remain about what that would include and how it would be implemented.

Regulatory race

The European Union is drafting an Artificial Intelligence Act, but even in the best-case scenario, it will take two and a half years to become law.

Last month, EU technology head Margrethe Vestager said it would be "way too late" and that the EU was working on a voluntary code for the industry with the US, which they anticipated would be completed within weeks.

China has also taken the lead in developing AI rules, including ideas requiring corporations to notify users anytime an AI algorithm is employed, the report added.

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The UK government published their opinions in a White Paper in March, which was criticized for having "significant gaps."

However, Marc Warner, a member of the government's AI Council, has suggested a stricter approach, telling the BBC that some of the most powerful kinds of AI may eventually have to be outlawed.

According to Matt O'Shaughnessy, visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, there was nothing the UK could do about the fact that others were leading the charge on AI legislation - but it could still play an essential role.

"The EU and China are both large markets that have proposed consequential regulatory schemes for AI - without either of those factors, the UK will struggle to be as influential," he said.

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But he added the UK was an "academic and commercial hub", with institutions that were "well-known for their work on responsible AI".

"Those all make it a serious player in the global discussion about AI," he told the BBC.