Rishi Sunak is facing a backlash from Tory MPs after inviting China to attend a UK summit on artificial intelligence next week.
The prime minister confirmed that China had been invited to the gathering at Bletchley Park, although he said Beijing had yet to confirm it would attend. “I can’t say with 100 per cent certainty that China will be there,” he said.
On Thursday morning he added: “I know there are some who will say they should have been excluded but there can be no serious strategy for AI without at least trying to engage all of the world’s leading AI powers. That might not have been the easy thing to do but it was the right thing to do.”
The decision to invite China prompted a backlash from Liz Truss, the former prime minister, who wrote to Sunak urging him to reconsider.
She said: “I was deeply disturbed to learn that the government intends welcoming representatives of the same Chinese state that has used and abused technology to aid its oppression of millions and attacks on freedom and democracy.
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“The regime in Beijing has a fundamentally different attitude to the West about AI, seeing it as a means of state control and a tool for national security.
“These and other concerns were a significant factor in the decision by the now deputy prime minister in 2020, when he was digital secretary, to remove all Huawei equipment from the UK’s 5G networks. That was the correct call then and should have informed decisions about invitations to the Bletchley Park summit.
“In any case, no reasonable person expects China to abide by anything agreed at this kind of summit, given their cavalier attitude to international law.”
Sunak said in his speech that the UK should not “rush to regulate” AI despite the risk that humans could “lose control” of the technology.
Michelle Donelan, the science and technology secretary, told Times Radio that the summit would not be “diminished” without China but said: “We think it’s important that they’re around the table, given their power in AI already; their capabilities. And we’ve got to at least try to have that conversation.”
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He said the severe dangers that came with AI were not something “people need to be losing sleep over right now” but he added there would be serious consequences if the development of the technology was allowed to go uncontrolled.
“Get this wrong and it could make it easier to build chemical or biological weapons. Terrorist groups could use AI to spread fear and disruption on an even greater scale,” he said. “Criminals could exploit AI for cyberattacks, disinformation, fraud or even child sexual abuse.
“And in the most unlikely but extreme cases, there is even the risk that humanity could lose control of AI completely through the kind of AI sometimes referred to as ‘super intelligence’.”
He said he did not want to be “alarmist” and that “only nation states have the power and legitimacy to keep their people safe”, but he would not be drawn on when Britain could bring in regulations for the technology, or what they would look like.
He said: “The UK’s answer is not to rush to regulate. This is a point of principle. We believe in innovation. It’s a hallmark of the British economy, so we will always have a presumption to encourage it not to stifle it. And in any case, how can we write laws that make sense for something that we don’t yet fully understand?”
