November 2, 2023 AI Safety Summit Diary: The here and now: The impact of AI on our lives Author(s): Gina Neff ‘Where the Future is Now’. This session brought together Professor Philip McCann, Chair of Urban and Regional Economics, Alliance Manchester Business School, Professor Jolene Skordis, UCL Centre for Global Health Economics, Sana Khareghani, former Head of the UK Government Office for AI (and my colleague at Responsible AI UK), and Wilson Wong, Head of Futures at CIPD. | Credit: IFOW AI is already changing communities and workplaces. In this latest AI Safety Summit diary, Gina Neff explores her conversations on the first day of the AI Safety Summit. As the AI Safety Summit kicked-off at Bletchley Park today, I started off the morning on BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour, to look at the growing problem of AI-generated abuse imagery. Here in conversation with presenter Jessica Creighton and Emma Hardy from the Internet Watch Foundation, we examined the how AI is already increasing child sexual abuse imagery. AI means many more people now have access to these tools, through which we are seeing the democratisation of harms online. What does AI safety look like through a feminist lens? We also posed the question, what does AI safety look like through a feminist lens? This drew on the work of my former student Julia Slupska, where the Reconfigure Network ran a series of community workshops in which they invited participants to define their own cybersecurity threats, implement changes to protect themselves, and reflect on the role cybersecurity plays in their lives. After the interview I joined a Future of Work stream for the AI Fringe. This was a day of events titled Making the Future Work from the Institute for the Future of Work (IFOW), in partnership with Warwick Business School. The organisers pledged to deliver a grounding debate in the here-and-now of how work is being transformed and working lives impacted. This was a UK focused cross-sector audience, including academics, policymakers, regional representatives, industry and civil society, as well as those within work with an interest in workplace AI impacts. I moderated the first session of the day, ‘Where the Future is Now’. This session brought together Professor Philip McCann, Chair of Urban and Regional Economics, Alliance Manchester Business School, Professor Jolene Skordis, UCL Centre for Global Health Economics, Sana Khareghani, former Head of the UK Government Office for AI (and my colleague at Responsible AI UK), and Wilson Wong, Head of Futures at CIPD. The state of automation and AI across the UK labour market In this session, we examined the current landscape, the gaps in governance and regulation, the challenges that these are presenting to workers and employers, and what research is telling us about the UK labour market and the state of automation and AI across it. This was a fascinated discussion that examine how algorithmic and automation systems are already changing work – and the experience of it – for people right now. But these changes and the benefits from AI are not evenly distributed and risk making today’s inequalities worse. It was a great day. I brainstormed future collaborations with Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, CEO of Stemettes and Chair of the Board of IFOW (Stay tuned!). Dr Anne-Marie Imafidon MBE, CEO of Stemettes and chair of the board of IFOW | Credit: Gina Neff With Reema Patel, my collaborator on the ESRC Digital Good Network, and with the always incredible Jeni Tennison of Connected by Data we chatted about expanding public participation into the conversations about AI. I caught up with Ivana Bartoletti, a giant in the AI ethics and implementation field who really pushed all of us to think about how we capture the momentum of this week for helping ensure civil society and academia guide the conversation about AI governance and we were both inspired by Sinead Kitching who was part of the conversation about the future of creative work that Dr Mike Katell from the Turing Institute put together for the day. AI challenges of the here and now Andrew Marr and Gina Neff | Credit: Tonight with Andrew Marr – LBC After the session, I was asked to go on LBC for an interview with Andrew Marr (14m07s). Following his interview with Paul Scully, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy about the AI Safety Summit, I spoke to Andrew about challenges we are facing here and now through AI tools, for example, to our jobs and our families. I explained that concerns that most people care about are not on the table for the Summit, from building digital skills to how we work with powerful AI tools. This brings its own risks for people, communities, and the planet. I explained that for most of us it is the here and now: our information, jobs and communities, that we need to examine how AI is having an impact. He said I gave him a ‘prickle of optimism’ about the future of AI regulation and development! Read all posts from my AI Safety Summit Diary: Wednesday 25 October – AI Safety Summit Diary: the lead-up Thursday 26 October – AI Safety Summit Diary: A Prime Ministerial visit Monday 30 October- AI Safety Summit Diary: How do we ensure responsible AI? Tuesday 31 October – AI Safety Summit Diary: The Summit approaches… Wednesday 1 November – AI Safety Summit Diary: The here and now: The impact of AI on our lives Thursday 2 November – AI Safety Summit Diary: What’s next after the AI Safety Summit? Friday 3 November – AI Safety Summit Diary: How do we build a responsible and trustworthy international AI ecosystem?