By UN Journal Lee Kap-soo

President Yoon Suk-yeol co-hosted a summit session of the AI Seoul Summit with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak on May 21.

The leaders and CEOs of global companies discussed ways to minimize the risks of AI, realize its full potential through free research and development, and equitably share the benefits generated by AI. 

In particular, the leaders agreed that safety, innovation, and inclusiveness are the goals that AI should pursue, and discussed how to materialize them. In addition, global AI companies voluntarily pledged to prevent AI risks.

In his opening remarks, the President presented safety, innovation, and inclusion as the three normative values of AI. The President said that the AI Seoul Summit marks a step forward in global AI governance as it brings together the efforts of the Korean government and the international community to establish new digital norms.

The President also expressed his appreciation for the Seoul Declaration for Safe, Innovative, and Inclusive AI (“Seoul Declaration”), which he said is significant because it expands the discussion at the AI Summit from safety to innovation and inclusion. 

The Seoul Declaration includes the importance of interoperable security measures; the need to expand networks and promote global collaboration among AI safety research centers in different countries; the commitment to develop policies and establish governance to create a safe, innovative, and inclusive AI ecosystem; and the need to engage various stakeholders, including businesses.

In his closing remarks, the President noted that through today's meeting, heads of state and government reached consensus on the three goals of AI safety, AI innovation, and AI inclusion, and shared the basic direction of balancing the risks and opportunities of AI. 

In particular, the Seoul Declaration is significant because it is a summit agreement that elevates the inter-ministerial agreement reached at Bletchley Park. In conclusion, the President said that the AI Summit will continue to be a leading platform for building global AI governance and looks forward to the leadership of the next host, France.

The Summit also adopted the Seoul Declaration and its annex, the Seoul Statement of Intent for International Cooperation on AI Safety Science (the “Seoul Statement of Intent”). In addition, companies participating in today's meeting signed the Frontier AI Safety Pledge.

The Summit was attended by U.S. Vice President Kamala Devi Harris, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Singaporean Prime Minister Lawrence Wong, Japanese Prime Minister Kishida, Italian Prime Minister Giorgio Meloni, French President Emmanuel Macron, and EU Vice-President Vera Jourova. 

Representing international organizations were UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres and OECD Secretary-General Matthias Korman. Representing global AI companies were Eric Schmidt, Founder of the Schmidt Foundation, Davis Hussabis, Chairman of Google DeepMind, Dario Amodei, Chairman of Antropic, Lee Jae-yong, Chairman of Samsung Electronics, Lee Hae-jin, Founder of Naver, Arthur Mensch, Chairman of Mistral AI, Anna Makanjoo, Vice President of OpenAI, Brad Smith, President of Microsoft, David Zapolsky, Vice President of Amazon Web Services, Nick Clegg, President of Meta, and Elon Musk, Founder of xAI.

The meeting resulted in the first summit agreement, the Seoul Declaration, and expanded the agenda from safety to innovation and inclusion, making the AI Summit the only summit-level platform to discuss comprehensive AI governance.

The next edition will be hosted by France under the name of the AI Action Summit.