The UK and Japan could lead a global alliance for responsible AI

We’re in the middle of an international AI gold rush. As national leaders wake up to the potentially vast implications of AI tools for their economies and societies, they’re racing to grab their share of its potential value – for much as globalization displaced manufacturing from the West to the East, AI promises to replace jobs in some parts of the world while creating new wealth in others.

In this new gold rush, countries are choosing very different paths: some are letting their digital prospectors run wild, whilst others seek to control their activities in the interests of human rights – or of state power.

The United States, for example, has embraced laissez-faire policies, with Donald Trump pursuing an AI Action Plan that weakens safeguards against discrimination and disinformation. At the other end of the scale, China uses facial recognition technology to monitor and control its ...