On November 1 and 2, the AI Safety Summit 2023 convened at the historic Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. The event drew global attention and aimed to foster collaboration among international governments, leading AI companies, civil society groups, and research experts.

The gathering addressed the various risks and opportunities associated with artificial intelligence, particularly at the cutting edge of its development. As an integrated marketing agency, we closely followed the summit to assess how the latest AI advancements and challenges could affect our industry and, by extension, our clients.

Here, we share key insights from the summit and their implications for the future of marketing.

The Bletchley Declaration: A Unifying Vision for AI Safety

A pivotal outcome of the summit was the Bletchley Declaration, an agreement among participating nations outlining shared principles and a vision for AI safety. This declaration acknowledges AI’s vast potential to benefit humanity while emphasising the importance of responsible and ethical AI development and use. It advocates for international cooperation, transparency, accountability, inclusivity, and human-centric AI governance and regulation. The document also identifies critical AI risks, including bias, discrimination, privacy, security, human dignity, autonomy, and agency, proposing measures to address these challenges.

The Bletchley Declaration marks a significant step toward establishing a global framework and standards for AI safety. For marketers, this means adhering to emerging rules and norms for AI safety, as well as aligning with the expectations and preferences of customers and stakeholders. Our AI-powered marketing solutions must be ethical, trustworthy, fair, transparent, and respectful of human rights and values. It’s crucial to communicate clearly and honestly about how we utilise AI and the associated benefits and risks for our audiences.

The AI Safety Institute: A Hub for AI Safety Research and Innovation

Another major announcement at the summit was the launch of the AI Safety Institute, a new UK-based centre dedicated to AI safety research and innovation. This institute will bring together top AI researchers, companies, civil society groups, and policymakers to advance the state of AI safety and promote collaboration and best practices. Moreover, it will offer education, training, and guidance for AI practitioners and users while engaging in public awareness and outreach activities to raise understanding of AI safety concerns.

The AI Safety Institute represents a valuable addition to the global AI ecosystem and reflects the UK’s leadership and commitment to AI safety. It will serve as a knowledge hub for marketers seeking to leverage AI safely and effectively, offering opportunities for collaboration, learning, and dialogue with other AI stakeholders and influencers. We eagerly anticipate engaging with the institute and supporting its mission and vision.

Frontier AI: Embracing the Potential and Risks

A prominent topic of discussion at the summit revolved around “frontier AI,” a term used to describe the next generation of AI systems capable of tasks beyond the capabilities of current AI. This includes AI systems generating innovative content, reasoning and learning from complex and uncertain data, and interacting and collaborating with humans and other AI systems.

Frontier AI offers significant marketing opportunities, enabling new and improved ways of creating, delivering, and measuring content and campaigns. However, it also presents notable risks, such as ensuring the quality, accuracy, and authenticity of AI-generated content, safeguarding customer privacy and security, and maintaining trust and brand reputation.

Marketers must be prepared for both the opportunities and challenges of frontier AI, taking a strategic approach to incorporate it into their activities. Staying up to date with the latest developments, learning from best practices, and collaborating with other AI stakeholders are all vital to ensure the safe, ethical, and beneficial use of frontier AI in marketing.

Looking to the Future

The AI Safety Summit 2023 was a milestone event that underscored the UK’s and the world’s commitment to AI safety, emphasising the importance of addressing the risks and opportunities of AI.

Looking to the future as marketers, we stand to gain much from AI while bearing the responsibility of its safe and responsible use, and the outcomes of the AI Safety Summit are certainly a step forward for the industry.

The Liquid View

‘As an integrated marketing agency, we’re always looking opportunities to improve ways of working, so the swift development of AI tools that can support day-to-day marketing activity seems like a gift from above. But is it too good to be true? Well, it’s certainly not the case that AI will be taking over the workload while we put our feet up. We’re still in the early stages of this tech and there’s a long way to go in terms of AI developing assets like personality and humour or skills such as critical thinking and evaluation.

At Liquid, we encourage the use of AI, but we do so with caution. AI is best placed at the planning and ideas stage, to nurture and support creativity. Any content that AI produces must be reworked by a human, because it’s just not good enough yet. It may be able to write a press release, but it won’t write a good one. It may give you a week’s worth of social media posts if you ask it nicely, but it won’t write with the wit, tone and consideration that a human will.’

Laurence Alexander, Digital Marketing Manager

If you’re looking for insights and inspiration for integrating AI into your marketing strategy and practice safely, we’d love for you to get in touch.