The declaration signed at the AI summit in New Delhi recognizes “the importance of security,” but it doesn’t include any binding measures on how to keep the technology safe.
BRUSSELS — Some 88 countries and regions, including the U.S., the U.K. and the EU, on Saturday endorsed an India-led declaration on artificial intelligence with little commitment to keep the technology safe.
While the countries in the declaration recognized “the importance of security in AI systems,” they failed to include any binding measures on how to keep the technology safe, limiting themselves mostly to voluntary or industry-led measures.
India gained support for its push to democratize the technology, with the declaration calling to enhance “the affordability of and acces to AI resources.”
The text, published on Saturday, showed little change compared to a draft declaration scooped by POLITICO on Monday.
The declaration is the most tangible outcome of the fourth artificial intelligence summit, which took place in the Indian megacity of New Delhi this week. The omission of “AI safety” emphasizes how the summit shifted from a safety focus during the first iteration in the U.K. in 2023 to a free-for-all trade fair now.
The EU, the U.S. and the U.K. all signed the declaration, which is a success for the Indian hosts. Russia, an ally of India, also signed. Last year, both the U.S. and the U.K. did not sign.
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi successfully challenged the U.S.-Chinese dominance in the AI space with his “democratization” push and a declaration that heavily emphasized the importance of “wide-scale adoption of AI.”
Both the U.S. and China didn’t have their heads of state or government leaders present at the summit, also because of a collision with Chinese New Year and the launch of U.S. President Donald Trump’s Board of Peace.
That left the spotlight to some who sided with India’s challenge to U.S.-China prominence, like United Nations boss Antonio Guterres, who said in his keynote that the future of AI should not be decided by “a few billionaires.”
The AI declaration gave a boost to the often-ignored open-source AI movement, which wants to make AI models publicly available to re-use and develop further.
“Open-source AI applications and other accessible AI approaches, where appropriate, and wide-scale diffusion of AI use cases can contribute to scalability, replicability, and adaptability of AI systems across sectors,” the declaration said.