The United Kingdom and the United States have inked a historic agreement to collaborate on developing advanced artificial intelligence (AI).
The agreement struck on Monday states that both governments would collaborate on establishing "robust" ways for assessing the safety of AI tools and the systems that support them.
It is the first bilateral agreement of its sort.
According to UK technology minister Michelle Donelan, it is "the defining technology challenge of our generation."
"We have always been clear that ensuring the safe development of AI is a shared global issue," she added.
"Only by collaborating can we tackle the technology's risks head-on and utilize its immense potential to help us all live easier and healthier lives."
The secretary of state for science, innovation, and technology noted that the accord expands on pledges made at the AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park in November 2023.
The summit, attended by AI executives such as OpenAI's Sam Altman, Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, and tech billionaire Elon Musk, witnessed the UK and US establish AI Safety Institutes to examine open and closed-source AI systems.
Currently, the bulk of AI systems can only execute single, intelligent activities that would typically be accomplished by a person.
These activities, known as "narrow" AI, might range from swiftly analyzing data to responding to a request.
However, there are concerns that more sophisticated "general" AI systems, capable of doing a variety of activities typically handled by people, may imperil mankind.
This article was originally published on the BBC.