King Charles III has warned of the existential risks to humanity posed by the rapid development of global artificial intelligence (AI) and urged the AI industry to safeguard human control.
On the 17th (local time), Reuters and BBC reported that King Charles III hosted a meeting at Dumfries House in Scotland, welcoming Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, Demis Hassabis, Google's Chief Scientist and co-founder of DeepMind, and Sara Pryor, OpenAI's Chief Financial Officer (CFO), among others.
In his opening remarks, King Charles III stated, “The development of AI, its nature and speed, is both fascinating and deeply concerning. Our humanity must remain sacred, and the public wants assurance that we will not lose control over our destiny and soul.”
He noted that developers are increasingly warning of the “life-threatening” dark side of AI, emphasizing the urgency of examining existential risks where such technology could fall into the wrong hands and be used destructively.
This meeting took place amid growing calls within the industry for AI development to slow down. Dario Amodei, CEO of Anthropic, and Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, have advocated for or supported the idea of slowing the pace. Political debates have also erupted, with former U.S. President Donald Trump criticizing the slowdown argument. Some have speculated that the push for deceleration may stem from industry leaders' desire to maintain dominance.
Jensen Huang, CEO of NVIDIA, who attended the meeting, expressed views differing from Amodei and others. Huang opposes strict AI development regulations.
He argued for “responsible optimism,” stating, “Those of us building AI must rigorously test systems. If they are not safe enough, we should hold them back.”
Huang also told reporters, “AI is very different from social media (SNS). SNS is a product, but AI is the technology behind every product and every technology. Therefore, regulate the product, not the AI technology itself,” as reported by Politico Europe.
Demis Hassabis, Google's Chief Scientist, pointed out during the meeting that a major concern regarding AI is the potential misuse of autonomous systems by “bad actors,” leading to harmful behavior, according to Bloomberg News.
