The United Kingdom will soon open an office for safe artificial intelligence development in California to promote further collaboration with the United States.
The center will conduct joint evaluations of models to inform international AI safety policy.
In a statement released on Monday, U.K. Secretary of State for Science and Technology Michelle Donelan said the new office supports the U.K. government’s objective of working with U.S. experts to create new international standards on AI safety.
“The expansion marks a pivotal step that will allow the U.K. to tap into the wealth of tech talent available in the Bay Area, engage with the world’s largest AI labs headquartered in both London and San Francisco, and cement relationships with the United States to advance AI safety for the public interest,” Donelan said.
The official noted that the U.S. office will perform complementary functions while the headquarters in London will continue enhancing the institute’s capabilities to evaluate the potential threats posed by AI systems.
The U.K. government will hire a team of technical personnel and a research director to support the office’s operations and run the facility, which is slated to start operating around summertime.
The institute announced its upcoming U.S. presence following the publication of the results of its testing of five publicly available advanced AI models. The tests found that the models could not complete complex tasks without human oversight and some models could produce harmful content.
