The world pushes ahead on AI safety — with or without the U.S.
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As Washington races ahead with a hands-off approach to AI, much of the rest of the world is slowing down to set rules.
Why it matters: Companies that work across the globe will be dealing with different regimes, compliance costs and expectations — and the U.S. could get left out of this AI conversation.
Driving the news: That was made clear at last week's UN General Assembly in New York City, where the first Global Dialogue on AI Governance took place.
- Goals for this "global dialogue" are to align rules "to help build safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems," per a speech by UN Secretary-General António Guterres.
Threat level: If there are AI disasters in the future, the U.S. may not be part of any global agreements on how to mitigate or deal with them.
Zoom in: The Trump administration has its own ideas for how to best control and deploy AI.
- "We totally reject all efforts by international bodies to assert centralized control and global governance of AI," Office of Science and Technology Policy director Michael Kratsios said in his remarks to the UN debate on global AI.
Policymakers from Finland, Singapore and India — along with participants of AI safety institutes from Canada, China, the OECD and Singapore — were among the panelists at AI Safety Connect last week.
- No U.S. officials spoke at the event.
- AI Safety Connect, held at UNGA, was meant to spur discussion on what "red lines" for AI should look like globally.
What they're saying: "I would want [the U.S. government] to be more publicly supportive, and I wish that we could actually have a quicker move towards global governance of AI regime with full U.S. support," Nicolas Miailhe, co-founder of AI Safety Connect and founder of Paris-based startup PRISM Eval, told Axios.
- Uma Kalkar, Miailhe's chief of staff, told Axios: "We've had U.S. presence [at our events], not necessarily always government presence."
- Kalkar: "It's not something that's being ignored, and it's not something that's being sidelined. ... It's about who's ready to have those conversations in those specific multilateral spaces."
What we're watching: World leaders have gathered for the last two years to discuss AI governance at summits in Paris and outside London.
- Vice President JD Vance attended this year's summit, telling the world that "the AI future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety."
- India will host the next global AI summit in New Delhi in February, and how the U.S. approaches that forum will send a major signal to the international community.
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