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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
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Will Hutton

AI is a force for good – and Britain needs to be a maker of ideas, not a mere taker

Multi-coloured strands of protein structures derived from AlphaFold study.
A power for good: AlphaFold is estimated to have saved 400m years of researcher time in examining protein structures by deploying the computing power of AI. Photograph: Karen Arnott/EMBL-EBI/PA

It was only 11 years ago that Prof Stephen Hawking declared that explosive and untrammelled growth in artificial intelligence could menace the future of humanity.

Two years ago, more than a thousand leaders in artificial intelligence, fearing “loss of control” given its exponential growth to outcomes unknown, called for an immediate six-month pause in AI research pending the creation of common safety standards. In a fortnight, France and India will co-host an international summit in Paris searching for accords better to ensure the safety of AI, following the 2023 British-hosted summit in Bletchley Park.

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