AI summit is Sunak’s finest hour

Rishi Sunak has defied the naysayers. His AI Safety Summit has been a resounding success (so far), bringing together global superpowers and tech giants to agree on a set of core principles about the regulation of artificial intelligence.

Even the King agrees. His Majesty joined in the proceedings at Bletchley Park with a stark message about the importance of this technology, which he argued could be as significant as the “harnessing of fire”.

At the start of this year, few world leaders paid much heed to the remarkable advances taking place in AI. Mr Sunak was the first to sound the alarm, and is now the first to draw together his peers to chart a way forward.

Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery. Some have suggested that US President Joe Biden and Vice-President Kamala Harris have stolen the UK’s thunder by rolling out the US’s policies on AI this very week.

To be clear, being a global pioneer on AI will not win Mr Sunak the next general election. Perhaps now there is nothing that can achieve that task.

But he can be proud of his achievement on this topic. With two reservations: first, that the “Bletchley declaration” issued yesterday does not actually go as far as setting up a new system of global regulation for AI, which will surely be needed to keep this technology safe.

And second, that Mr Sunak might just blow up his whole summit by hosting the uber-maverick Elon Musk for a “conversation” on AI policy, which – given the Tesla boss’s increasingly outrageous views – could well end up overshadowing the week’s hard work. What a gamble!