NEW DELHI: A summit statement on how the world should approach the promises and pitfalls of artificial intelligence was still not published Saturday afternoon, a day after it had been expected at global talks in New Delhi.
Dozens of national delegations, including leaders from France, Brazil and other countries, had gathered in the Indian capital this week to discuss the fast-developing technology.
On Friday, India’s IT minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said there was “huge consensus on the declaration”, the details of which he declined to provide.
He said the statement already had more than 70 signatories, but he hoped it would pass 80.
“We are just trying to maximise the number,” the minister said as the five-day AI Impact Summit drew to a close.
AFP contacted summit organisers and the IT ministry for comment on Saturday.
The summit, attended by tens of thousands of people including top tech CEOs, was the fourth annual international meeting to discuss the implications of generative AI, and the first hosted by a developing country.
Some visitors had complained of poor organisation, including chaotic entry and exit points, at the vast summit and expo site.
Hot topics included the societal benefits of multilingual AI translation, the threat of job disruption and the heavy electricity consumption of data centres.
But analysts said that the summit’s broad focus, and vague promises made at its previous editions in France, South Korea and Britain, would make concrete commitments unlikely.
The United States, which did not sign last year’s AI summit statement, released its own bilateral declaration with India on Friday.
The two countries agreed to “pursue a global approach to AI that is unapologetically friendly to entrepreneurship and innovation”.
Also on Friday, White House technology adviser Michael Kratsios, head of the US delegation, warned against centralised control of generative AI.
“As the Trump Administration has now said many times: We totally reject global governance of AI,” he said. (RSS)
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