The UK’s AI Summit - a missed opportunity

JAAG is today pleased to join with over 100 concerned civil society organisations and individuals in addressing an open letter to the UK Prime Minister about the much – vaunted UK Global Summit on AI Safety.

We point out that many millions of people are already feeling the harmful effects of AI: whether they have been fired from their job by an algorithm, or been subject to authoritarian biometric surveillance, or seen their small business squeezed out by big tech companies.

Yet the communities and workers most affected by AI have been marginalised, and civil society has been sidelined, by the Summit.

JAAG believes that these issues can only be tackled if those who are most exposed to AI harms are fully involved in discussions and debate. Only if the whole of society is given a voice can we ensure that the future of AI is as safe and beneficial as possible for everyone.

An open letter to the Prime Minister on the ‘Global Summit on AI Safety’ 

Dear Prime Minister,

Your ‘Global Summit on AI Safety’ seeks to tackle the transformational risks and benefits of AI, acknowledging that AI “will fundamentally alter the way we live, work, and relate to one another”. 

Yet the communities and workers most affected by AI have been marginalised by the Summit.

The involvement of civil society organisations that bring a diversity of expertise and perspectives has been selective and limited. 

This is a missed opportunity. 

As it stands, the Summit is a closed door event, overly focused on speculation about the remote ‘existential risks’ of ‘frontier' AI systems – systems built by the very same corporations who now seek to shape the rules.

For many millions of people in the UK and across the world, the risks and harms of AI are not distant – they are felt in the here and now.

This is about being fired from your job by algorithm, or unfairly profiled for a loan based on your identity or postcode.

People are being subject to authoritarian biometric surveillance, or to discredited predictive policing.

Small businesses and artists are being squeezed out, and innovation smothered as a handful of big tech companies capture even more power and influence. 

To make AI truly safe we must tackle these and many other issues of huge individual and societal significance. Successfully doing so will lay the foundations for managing future risks.

For the Summit itself and the work that has to follow, a wide range of expertise and the voices of communities most exposed to AI harms must have a powerful say and equal seat at the table. The inclusion of these voices will ensure that the public and policy makers get the full picture.

In this way we can work towards ensuring the future of AI is as safe and beneficial as possible for communities in the UK and across the world.

Signed:

• 5 Rights Foundation

• Access Now

• AI Now Institute

• Amnesty International

• ARTICLE 19

• Avaaz Foundation

• BARAC UK

• Big Brother Watch

• BWI Global Union, representing 12 million workers globally

• Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH)

• Centre for Technomoral Futures, University of Edinburgh

• Child Rights International Network (CRIN)

• Community Union

• Connected By Data

• Consumers International

• Data & Society

• Data, Tech & Black Communities CIC

• Defend Democracy

• Derechos Digitales

• Education International

• Elanta Services

• Eticas Tech

• European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), representing 45 million members from 93 trade union organisations in 41 European countries

• Fair Trials

• Fair Vote UK

• Finance Innovation Lab

• ForHumanity

• Glitch

• Global Action Plan

• Global Witness

• Homo Digitalis

• Inclusioneering

• IndustriALL Global Union representing over 50 million workers in 140 countries

• Institute for the Future of Work

• International Trade Union Confederation, representing 191 million trade union members in 167 countries and territories

• International Transport Workers Federation, representing 18.5 million workers globally

• IPANDETEC

• Just Algorithms Action Group 

• Just Treatment

• Kristophina Shilongo, Senior Mozilla Fellow in Tech Policy

• Liberty

• Migration Mobilities, University of Bristol

• Mozilla

• NASUWT, teachers union

• National Education Union

• National Union of Journalists

• Open Futures

• Open Rights Group

• Privacy International

• Prospect union

• Public Law Project

• Research ICT Africa

• Reset Tech

• Safe Online Women Kenya

• Statewatch

• StopWatch

• Superbloom

• The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO), representing 60 unions and 12.5 million American workers

• The Citizens

• The End Violence Against Women Coalition 

• The Open Data Institute

• The Racial Justice Network

• The Trade Union Advisory Committee to the OECD

• The Trades Union Congress, representing 6 million UK workers

• TSSA - the union for people in transport and travel

• Understanding Patient Data

• UNI Europa Union, representing 7 million European service workers

• UNI Global Union, representing 20 million service workers in 150 countries

• UNISON - the public service union

• UNITE the Union

• United Tech and Allied Workers

• United We Rise Uk

• USDAW - Union of Shop, Distributive and Allied Workers

• WHAT TO FIX

• Worker Info Exchange

• Adam Leon Smith, Chair of British Computer Society Fellows Technical Advisory Group

• Andelka Phillips, Senior Lecturer in Law, Science and Technology, University of Queensland

• Baroness Dawn Primarolo, former MP

• Baroness Frances O’Grady, former General Secretary of the TUC

• Burkhard Schafer, Professor of Computational Legal Theory, University of Edinburgh

• Dr Alex Wood, University of Bristol

• Dr Gina Helfrich, Centre for Technomoral Futures, University of Edinburgh

• Dr Julian Huppert, University of Cambridge and former MP

• Dr Mike Katell, The Alan Turing Institute

• Dr Miranda Mowbray honorary lecturer in Computer Science at the University of Bristol

• Dr Nora Ni Loideain, Information Law & Policy Centre, Institute of Advanced Legal Studies, University of London

• Dr P M Krafft, Creative Computing Institute

• Dr Richard Clayton, Director, Cambridge University Cybercrime Centre 

• Dr. Cristina Richie Lecturer of Ethics of Technology at University of Edinburgh

• European Center for Not-for-Profit Law

• Ismael Kherroubi Garcia, CEO of Kairoi 

• Judith Townend, Reader in Digital Society and Justice, University of Sussex

• Kate Baucherel, Galia Digital

• Lord John Monks, former General Secretary of the TUC

• Maria Farrell, writer and Senior Fellow At Large, University of Western Australia Tech and Policy Lab

• Mick Whitley MP

• Neil Lawrence, University of Cambridge DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning and Senior AI Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute

• Peter Flach, Professor of Artificial Intelligence, University of Bristol

• Phoebe Li, Reader in Law and Technology, University of Sussex

• Professor Alan Bundy, the School of Informatics at the University of Edinburgh

• Professor Alex Lascarides, University of Edinburgh

• Professor Douwe Korff, Emeritus professor of international law, European human rights and digital rights expert

• Professor Lilian Edwards, Newcastle Law School

• Professor Martin Parker, University of Bristol Business School

• Professor Nathalie Smuha, KU Leuven Faculty of Law & NYU School of Law

• Professor Peter Sommer, Birmingham City University

• Professor Sara (Meg) Davis, University of Warwick

• Professor Sonia Livingstone, London School of Economics 

• Professor Sue Black OBE, Durham University

• Professor Vijay Varadharajan, Advanced Cyber Security Engineering Research Centre (ACSRC), The University of Newcastle, Australia

• Rachel Coldicutt, Executive Director, Careful Trouble

• Shân M. Millie, Bright Blue Hare

• Tabitha Goldstaub, former chair of the AI Council

• Tania Duarte, founder of We and AI

• Thompsons Solicitors

• University and College Union (UCU)