UK-Canada science of AI safety partnership
Published 20 May 2024
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The governments of the United Kingdom and Canada have today announced their intent to advance collaboration, including between their respective AI Safety Institutes, on AI safety as part the growing network of Institutes focused on ensuring the safe and responsible adoption of AI around the world. This builds on the Bletchley Declaration and demonstrates Canada and the UK’s shared ambition to foster the safe and responsible development and deployment of AI.
Confirmed by UK Technology Minister Michelle Donelan and Minister Champagne, this partnership will serve to deepen existing links between the countries and inspire collaborative work on AI safety research.
As part of this agreement, the countries will commit to creating pathways for the sharing of expertise to bolster existing testing and evaluations work and to jointly identify other priority areas for research collaboration. The two countries will put measures in place to facilitate professional exchanges and secondments, and to leverage and share their respective computational resources. Furthermore, the UK AI Safety Institute (AISI) will share its allocation of priority access to the UK AI Research Resource with the Canadian AISI on their joint research. As more details are announced on the Canadian AISI over the coming months, Canada and the UK will continue to engage to further specify the details of their collaboration, including by working toward a Memorandum of Understanding on AI safety collaboration between our countries.
The two countries’ AISIs also intend to collaborate with the US AISI on a programme of research to catalyse the field of “Systemic AI Safety” - the safeguarding of societal systems into which AI is being deployed.
Both countries are also committed to the development of an international network to accelerate the advancement of the science of AI safety, and the development of AI safety standards. To support this, both governments expect their Institutes to jointly advance future international evidence-based reports on AI risk, such as the International Report on the Science of AI Safety. Both governments will also regularly exchange information on their respective work on the development, establishment and implementation of standards relating to the safety of advanced AI systems, as well as to engage in relevant international forums; with standards bodies, and with other experts to share knowledge and foster alignment on critical safety matters.
Both governments recognise the value of this work in aiming to keep the development of AI models safe while we seek to unlock its potential benefits. This new partnership will help to foster an open dialogue across borders and drive forward foundational research and promote alignment on AI safety.