On the 10th and 11th of February this year, politicians and global experts in Artificial Intelligence will be gathering in Paris for the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit.

While the upcoming Summit will focus on some of the issues AI poses, such as threats and challenges to the future of work, there is insufficient space set aside in the discussions over the two days to discuss catastrophic risk or loss of control, and wider AI Safety issues.

AI Safety is a field which is crucial to the prevention of serious harm occurring as a result of the development and use of AI systems. 

As a signatory of this petition, I am asking the organizing team of the AI Action Summit and national delegations attending to make AI Safety the focus of this and future AI Summits.

The rapid advancement of AI capabilities in recent years makes it critical that world leaders work on mitigating the existential risks posed by increasingly powerful AI systems to ensure our common future. Accomplished AI scientists, including Geoffrey Hinton, and CEOs of the leading AI technology companies (OpenAI, Google, Anthropic), have stated that developing such technology could lead to the extinction of humanity. 

Because of this, AI Safety discussions are crucial to the prevention of serious dangers. But very little time has been given to them in the agenda of this upcoming Summit.

And that’s why PauseAI is asking the organizing team to allocate more time for discussion of AI Safety, and for national delegations of the past, present and future summits to:

• Host at least one session for collaboration and to create global treaties and regulations to mitigate catastrophic risks from AI and reign in the companies and organizations racing to build ever more capable and dangerous AI systems.
• Host at least one session for the establishment of international AI safety bodies to enforce such treaties and to uphold AI regulations in a framework of mutual transparency.
• Facilitate delegates’ abilities to share and review best practices on how each nation can contribute to the challenge of protecting our common future as well as their own populations from the risk of AI. 

As a signatory of this petition, I am asking the organizing team of the AI Action Summit and national delegations attending to make AI Safety the focus of this and future AI Summits.

About PauseAI - the organization behind this petition
PauseAI is an organization of volunteers and communities located across the globe seeking to implement a pause on the development of general capability AI systems until we know how to build them safely and govern them in a way that benefits everyone. Our members coordinate to make sure the risks of AI are understood and discussed in the public sphere, so that we can all influence our decision-makers to agree to a global AI treaty to stop the development of potentially dangerous AI systems until we are prepared for them. 

Join us here  and take part in our International Protests during the Paris AI Summit here.