(London) The United Kingdom has chosen Bletchley Park, a mythical place where a code used by the Nazis was deciphered, to host “the first world summit devoted to the security of artificial intelligence” (AI) in early November, announced the government on Thursday.
Visiting Washington in June, British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced that his country would host a meeting this year on AI, the possibilities and risks of which are currently shaking the planet.
The meeting will take place on November 1 and 2 and will bring together representatives of governments, large companies involved in AI and researchers, the government said in a statement on Thursday.
This will examine “the risks of AI” and “discuss how they can be mitigated through internationally coordinated action”, with the aim of arriving at “a series of measures rapid and targeted measures aimed at enhancing the security of the use of AI”, it is specified.
The conference will be hosted at Bletchley Park, a mansion in North London. It is in this mansion that the British mathematician Alan Turing, considered the father of computing, succeeded with his “Enigma” machine to “break” the codes used by German submarines cruising in the North Atlantic, precipitating according to some historians the fall of Adolf Hitler who, otherwise, could have lasted one or two more years.
This story – which inspired the film The imitation game starring Benedict Cumberbatch as Turing – was only revealed in 2000, when this classified mission was made public.
“No country will be spared by AI and no country can solve the challenges posed by this technology alone,” Foreign Minister James Cleverly said in the statement. “In our interconnected world, we need to take an international approach.”
