King to ask industry leaders how AI can be developed for ‘good of humanity’

The King will meet with leaders of the world’s most prominent artificial intelligence companies and ask them how the technology can be developed for “the good of humanity”, it has been reported.

Charles hopes the discussions will lead to a “wider understanding” of the “responsibilities” of developing AI, a source told The Sunday Times.

He will reportedly meet with leaders from Nvidia, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Open AI in Scotland.

A royal source told the newspaper: “The King is there to convene, listen and encourage those discussions and to pose the question of: ‘How do we develop AI for the good of humanity?’

“As we’ve seen him do on issues like the environment and water scarcity, he is hoping to provide a neutral space to aid conversations that are part of a national and global issue on something that is going to impact all of us.”

They said Charles “hopes the discussions bring about a wider understanding of the responsibilities of developing this technology, as well as the opportunities, ensuring any technological development remains centred around human benefit for communities”.

They added: “He knows it will impact everyone in society. He wants to ask the question: ‘Would it be helpful to have a set of principles?’ His feeling is it is not an easy thing to do, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try.”

Nvidia chief executive Jensen Huang, Google DeepMind founder Sir Demis Hassabis and chairman and chief executive of IonQ Niccolo de Masi are among those understood to be in attendance, the newspaper reported.

Paolo Benanti, who is an adviser to the Pope on issues of AI and technology ethics, will also reportedly be at the summit.

The event will be overseen by the Ditchley Foundation which has drawn up the draft charter for AI leaders.

According to the newspaper, the charter is understood to include a “shared set of principles” that would “help guide the future application of AI, not merely as a driver of capability and efficiency, but as a tool that upholds human dignity and contributes to the flourishing of both people and the planet”.

On Saturday, the boss of Anthropic – whose company is behind the AI assistant Claude – issued a call for the industry to “slow down” to give safety measures time to catch up.

In an essay titled We Must Pace the Frontier, Dario Amodei said he is concerned that since this summer, AI has been “advancing drastically faster”.

Given the rate of AI development, Mr Amodei is worried that within six to 12 months it could be capable of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet.

The essay has been supported by other industry leaders, including Elon Musk, the chief executive of SpaceX, and Sam Altman, head of Open AI.

Anthropic previously said it blocked efforts by bad actors to use its AI models for malicious activity, such as cyber attacks, surveillance and research that could have led to biological weapons.

In July, OpenAI – the makers of ChatGPT – shook the industry after saying its AI system hacked into another company on its own in an “unprecedented cyber incident”.