King Charles hosted a private summit on Thursday with leading figures in artificial intelligence and the U.K. government. Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, executives from OpenAI and Anthropic, the new U.K. AI minister Kanishka Narayan, and the head of the U.K.’s foreign intelligence service attended. Paolo Benanti, who advises the pope on AI, was also present. The meeting took place at Dumfries House, an 18th-century estate in Ayrshire owned by the king’s charitable foundation.
Remarks from the summit
The royal family is usually careful about political issues for constitutional reasons. AI is currently one of the most contentious topics globally. The king urged the leaders to find a way to control the technology before it is too late. He described the fast development and the substance of the technology as both intriguing and deeply concerning.
“AI is already showing immense capacity to improve and save life,” he said, citing medicine and science as examples. “Yet those who have created these technologies are now increasingly warning that AI risks developing darker capacities, perhaps even to take life.”
This comment came days after an Anthropic researcher quit. The researcher wrote online that AI companies were racing to build machines much smarter than any human and that humanity may not survive this.
The king continued by saying it is urgent to properly consider the existential dangers of what would happen if this technology fell into the wrong hands and was used in potentially catastrophic ways.
“Surely, we need sufficient means of control before it’s all too late?” he asked. As the speech ended, he urged leaders to harness the good of AI and to build international cooperation and consensus to achieve that outcome. This remark follows Anthropic shutting off access to its Fable and Mythos models to only U.S. customers. The move shocked the European tech scene and prompted many to consider the concept of AI sovereignty.
“The task before you is not to merely advance technology, but to ensure that it remains firmly in the service of humanity, community, and the natural world,” he said as he finished. “As we embrace what is new, we must not lose what is timeless.”
Reports say he stayed for around 20 minutes, leaving the guests to discuss the matters among themselves. For the summit, OpenAI sent its CFO Sarah Friar while Anthropic sent Tino Cuéllar, who leads global affairs. When reached for comment, Cuéllar said the company was honored to have taken part in the discussion and was grateful to the king for convening industry leaders and voices from across society to discuss the role of AI in serving the public good.
Background context
This is not the first time King Charles has spoken about the challenges and benefits of AI, having done so in 2023 and 2024. This summit is especially timely as AI continues to dominate every industry, topic, and form of conversation. This month, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei called for a deceleration in AI development. Nvidia’s Huang and President Donald Trump quickly rejected those calls.
“We’re leading China in AI,” the president said. “We’re the most sophisticated country in the world, and frankly I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins.”
It shows how complex the matter has become, as the interests of Big Tech, politics, and society collide. For the past year, OpenAI and Anthropic have teased blockbuster IPOs, though OpenAI recently said its IPO plans were stalled this year as concerns over AI safety persist.
