Third Deputy Director of National Security Wang Yun-jong speaks during a press briefing at the presidential office in Seoul, Monday, regarding the AI Seoul Summit which will kick off on Tuesday. Yonhap

Korea and the United Kingdom will co-host a summit on the safe use of artificial intelligence (AI), which will be a stage of competition between countries seeking to lead discussions on internationally accepted rules governing AI.

According to the Korean presidential office, the AI Seoul Summit will kick off its two-day run on Tuesday, as a follow-up to the first AI Safety Summit which the U.K. hosted at Bletchley Park last November.

The event will be comprised of an online leaders’ session on the first day. The leaders of the Group of Seven nations, Singapore and Australia have been invited to the session, along with the heads of international organizations such as the United Nations, the European Union and the OECD.

A ministers’ session will follow on Wednesday and it will be participated by minister-level officials from German, France, Spain and other countries.

Though China was not invited to the leaders’ session, Beijing recently confirmed that its ranking official will participate in the ministers’ session.

Among businesses, the presidential office said Samsung, Naver, Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, OpenAI and other AI industry leaders have been invited.

Discussions will focus on AI safety, addressing the potential capabilities of the most advanced AI models, but will include additional talks on innovation and inclusivity to seek a balanced view between the risks posed by AI and its positive aspects at the same time.

“While last year’s U.K.-hosted summit focused on AI safety, this year’s summit will expand the agenda to include innovation and inclusivity on top of safety. For this reason, participants will discuss in a balanced manner not only the risks posed by AI but also its positive aspects and how AI can contribute to humanity,” Third Deputy Director of National Security Wang Yun-jong said in a press briefing.

Wang said an agreement between participating leaders will be adopted after the leaders’ session, and it will likely state safety, innovation and inclusivity as the three vital ingredients required for realizing the full potential of AI.

President Yoon Suk Yeol attends the online leaders’ session of the AI Safety Summit hosted by the United Kingdom in this Nov. 2, 2023, photo. Courtesy of presidential office

Regarding AI safety, discussions are expected to build on the Bletchley Declaration, which was adopted by the attending countries of last year’s summit.

In the Bletchley Declaration, countries affirmed that “AI should be designed, developed, deployed and used, in a manner that is safe, in such a way as to be human-centric, trustworthy and responsible.”

The countries also agreed to focus on “identifying AI safety risks of shared concern” but did not reach a level of identifying the risks in detail, as discussions were at an early stage and each nation had different perspectives.

While doing so, the European Union passed its own AI Act, which is the world’s first legally binding rule that comes with status assessment, risk classification and other strict requirements aimed at preventing any potential negative consequences of using AI systems.

The United States is issuing a string of executive orders on AI safety, while China also proposed a global AI governance.

Leaders at the Seoul summit are expected to make efforts to define the risks of AI and the means to control them.

“Though further discussions are required, we can expect there will be noticeable progress from the Bletchley Declaration in defining what the risks are and how we can assess them,” a senior presidential official said.

In a joint contribution article to the U.K’s inews, Monday, President Yoon Suk Yeol and U.K. Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said the AI Seoul Summit will focus on innovation, safety and inclusiveness.

“Although positive efforts have been made to shape global AI governance, significant gaps still remain,” the article read. “The AI Seoul Summit will help to create a vision for AI governance which deals with those gaps, while promoting the fundamental priorities of innovation, safety and inclusivity.”