Alert – Elon Musk warns AI is ‘one of the biggest threats’ to humanity as he joins world leaders at Bletchley Park summit while Meta’s Nick Clegg says US and UK elections at risk from  ‘deepfakes’ and even the King urges caution over ‘leap’ in tech power

Elon Musk warned that artificial intelligence is ‘one of the biggest threats’ to humanity today as he made a star appearance at the UK’s AI Safety Summit.

The billionaire X boss used a star turn at the Bletchley Park event to say it was ‘timely’ because AI poses an ‘existential risk’ to humans, who face being outsmarted by machines for the first time.

The event arranged by Rishi Sunak will host discussions with world leaders, tech firms and scientists on the risks of new technology. 

Mr Musk, one of the world’s richest men, is a well-known critic of AI. His intervention came after senior Meta executive Nick Clegg – a former UK deputy prime minister – warned generative AI ‘deepfakes’ may pose a risk to upcoming elections in the US and UK next year.

The King hailed AI as ‘one of the greatest technological leaps in the history of human endeavour’ but warned of the urgent need to work together to combat its ‘significant risks’ as he opened the event with a video message.

Mr Musk said he hoped the two-day summit could be used to establish an ‘international consensus’ and the creation of a ‘third-party referee’ to monitor technology.  

‘I think AI is one of the biggest threats (to humans),’ he said.

‘We have for the first time the situation where we have something that is going to be far smarter than the smartest human.

‘We’re not stronger or faster than other creatures, but we are more intelligent, and here we are for the first time, really in human history, with something that is going to be far more intelligent than us.

‘It’s not clear to me if we can control such a thing, but I think we can aspire to guide it in a direction that’s beneficial to humanity

‘But I do think it’s one of the existential risks that we face and it is potentially the most pressing one if you look at the timescale and rate of advancement – the summit is timely, and I applaud the Prime Minister for holding it.’

Mr Musk added that he hoped the two-day summit could be used to establish an ‘international consensus’ on insight into AI, so that a ‘third-party referee’ could be established in the sector ‘who can observe what leading AI companies are doing and at least sound the alarm if they have concerns’.

Some 28 nations including the US and China have signed the Bletchley Declaration setting out ‘a shared understanding of the opportunities and risks posed by frontier AI and the need for governments to work together to meet the most significant challenges’.

Mr Clegg insisted this morning that civilisation-ending threats had been overblown, and urged governments to avoid heavy-handed regulation.

But he said there were risks to elections from technology that allows convincing fake material to be created. 

Mr Clegg said industry and government co-operation was needed ‘right now’ on the role generative AI – which can make images, text, audio and even videos at request – will play in votes next year.

The top Facebook executive spoke out as the UK’s AI summit at Bletchley Park began with an agreement to tackle the ‘risks’ from new technology.

Ministers will discuss the possibility of AI interfering in elections at the summit, Oliver Dowden has said. 

The Deputy PM is launching the conference at the historic wartime codebreaker base as experts wrangle over the scale of the risks from the emerging technology – and how to minimise them.

A government paper published last week revealed how advances in AI will make it cheaper and easier for hackers, scammers and terrorists to attack innocent victims – all within the next 18 months.

It predicts so-called bots – social media accounts that appear like real people – will target users with ‘personalised disinformation’, machines will launch their own cyberattacks without needing human direction, and anyone will be able to learn how to create the world’s most dangerous weapons.

The guest list for the event is still not entirely clear, with Downing Street forced to deny the summit is being snubbed by world leaders.

Neither US President Joe Biden nor French President Emmanuel Macron will be there, but Vice President Kamala Harris will represent the US and EU commission chief Ursula von der Leyen will speak on behalf of the bloc.

Another unknown is who will represent China, although ministers have confirmed that the Asian superpower has been invited. 

The summit was originally billed by Mr Sunak as a chance for the UK to lead the world in establishing agreement on the safe use of AI technology, after he set out his ambition for the UK to become the ‘geographical home of global AI safety regulation’ in the summer.

Conflict in the Middle East has since fixed the attention of world leaders, and in the US, President Biden has signed an executive order to ‘ensure that America leads the way in seizing the promise and managing the risks of artificial intelligence’.

But the UK Government has insisted the summit has merit, with a guest list including pioneering AI companies like UK-based Deep Mind, as well as OpenAI, and Anthropic.

Mr Musk, the Tesla CEO and owner of the social media site X, will join the PM for a live interview after the summit closes tomorrow.

The billionaire is a co-founder of OpenAI – the company behind the popular ChatGPT tool – and has previously expressed concerns about the possibility of AI becoming hostile towards humans.

Sir Nick Clegg, now president of global affairs at Meta, told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the dangers of current AI systems had been ‘overstated’.

‘I sometimes wonder whether we somewhat overstate what these systems do, as they are currently constituted,’ he said.

‘These large language models, these generative AI models that have created so much excitement over recent months – they are very powerful, they are very versatile, they consume a huge amount of data and they require a lot of computing capacity.

‘But they are basically processing vast amounts of data and then predicting, if you like, the next word or the next token in response to a human prompt. So they are vast gigantic auto-complete systems. They don’t know anything themselves, they have no innate knowledge, they have no autonomy or agency yet.

‘This is I think a very important point and theme… how much time should we all choose – academics, researchers, civil society governments regulators and the industry – (to spend) on a future, a relatively speculative future about what AI systems might evolve into in the future. 

‘And how much should we focus on challenges that we have in the here and now.’

Sir Nick said it was important that ‘proximate challenges’ were not ‘crowded out by a lot of speculative, sometimes somewhat futuristic predictions which may materialise, but candidly there are a lot of people who think they won’t materialise or materialise anytime soon’.

He warned that co-operation is needed ‘right now’ on the role generative AI will play in elections next year. 

Mr Dowden agreed that the election risk from AI would be a key today at the summit.

‘I think Nick is absolutely right to highlight that and indeed that is one of the topics we will be discussing today at the summit,’ he said.

‘There is a range of different buckets of risks, and the first one is exactly those kind of societal risks, whether they go to bias, disinformation or the creation of deepfakes.

‘But we should also be mindful of the longer-term risks. We don’t do this in a vacuum. You well know that know famous warning that was issued by those frontier AI companies about an existential risk.

‘I deal with that in a pragmatic and proportionate way, but we need to take it seriously and analyse risk and that is what this summit is also about.’

Michelle Donelan, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said: ‘AI is already an extraordinary force for good in our society, with limitless opportunity to grow the global economy, deliver better public services and tackle some of the world’s biggest challenges.

‘But the risks posed by frontier AI are serious and substantive and it is critical that we work together, both across sectors and countries to recognise these risks.

‘This summit provides an opportunity for us to ensure we have the right people with the right expertise gathered around the table to discuss how we can mitigate these risks moving forward.

‘Only then will we be able to truly reap the benefits of this transformative technology in a responsible manner.’

Roundtable discussions on frontier AI safety will take place on the first day of the gathering at Bletchley Park, near Milton Keynes, which was home to the UK’s Second World War codebreakers.

Alongside tech companies, civil society groups and experts from the Alan Turing Institute, and the Ada Lovelace Institute will be present.

The second day of the summit will focus on the responsible use of AI technology.

As the conference begins, the UK Government has meanwhile pledged £38 million towards funding artificial intelligence projects around the world, starting in Africa.

The commitment is part of an £80 million collaboration between Britain, Canada and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to boost ‘safe and responsible’ programming, the Foreign Office said.