The artificial intelligence (AI) industry needs strict guardrails and standards to ensure the technology is safe, the International AI Summit in Dublin heard on Wednesday.
Tech leaders from Microsoft, Google, Stripe and IBM gathered at the RDS in Ballsbridge, Dublin 4, alongside policymakers to discuss the opportunities and issues facing the industry.
Cofounder and chairman of Google DeepMind Demis Hassabis said recent incidents of AI agents going “rogue” and hacking third-party systems were “early warning shots”.
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“The systems aren’t that powerful yet, so the incidents aren’t that major, but they could be looking into next year and the next couple of years if we don’t do more work as an industry and individually as companies and governments,” he said.
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“There’s a lot of work that we can bring best practices from other sectors that have dealt with safety-critical systems, whether it’s biology or nuclear. I think there’s a lot of lessons that can be learned about containment systems, and I think we need to start taking that seriously and bring experts in from those areas.”
Hassabis has backed the establishment of a standards body that would help develop the technology in a “nuanced and nimble and dynamic way”, and put more responsibility on so-called frontier labs who were developing new areas of the technology to make sure it was safe.
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“We don’t want to stifle the innovation, all the amazing things that come out of it. We want those things, but also there’s no complete consensus even [among] people working on this – the scientists and the researchers working on this – [about] what exactly the risks are and how big they are,” he said.
He said a framework that could quickly adapt to test critical elements of the systems, keeping up with the technology in a way that regulation would struggle to do, would be needed.
Speaking at the opening of the event, European Commission vice-president with responsibility for tech sovereignty Henna Virkkunen said incidents of hacking and so-called rogue AI undermine trust in the technology.
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“The commission has been loud and clear: AI must remain under human direction, oversight and control, and we stand ready to take all necessary steps to ensure companies follow AI Act rules so that European people can trust AI models and innovations.”
Stripe’s Eileen O’Mara said the technology also presented an opportunity for economies.
“What we are seeing is a complete replatform of the economy. AI companies are going global faster than any other cohort of any in [software as a service] land in history. That’s really unique,” she said.
“AI in this economy should be one that brings everybody with it. This is an opportunity for everybody to have an opportunity to drive productivity and growth, and most importantly for Europe to drive meaningful entrepreneurship and drive business.”
The event was opened by Taoiseach Micheál Martin, who said there was a desire for “responsible, safe and secure AI” with AI benefits “guided and guarded by human agency”.
The technology has the potential to improve services, he said, but there was a need to cut through the noise, hype and rhetoric to zero in on the opportunities that could answer many of the challenges facing Europe today.
