King Charles hosted a private summit on Thursday with some of the most prominent figures in AI and the UK government, including Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, the leaders of OpenAI and Anthropic, the UK’s new AI minister Kanishka Narayan, and even the head of the UK’s foreign intelligence agency. Paolo Benanti, who advises the Pope on AI, was also there.
The king’s remarks at the summit, held at Dumfries House, an 18th-century Ayrshire mansion owned by King Charles’ Charitable Trust, were notable. The royal family is usually wary of delving too deeply into political issues for constitutional reasons. AI is one of the hottest issues in the world right now. The king urged leaders in the room to find ways to control AI “before it’s too late,” adding that the rapid development of the technology and its “innards” is “both interesting and deeply worrying.”
Citing medicine and science as an example, he said, “AI has already shown immense ability to improve and save lives.” “But the people who developed these technologies are now increasingly warning that AI risks developing darker capabilities, even deadly.” The remarks came just days after one human researcher wrote on the internet that AI companies “are racing to create machines far smarter than any human,” and that humanity “might not survive in this situation.”
The King went on to say there is an urgent need to properly consider the “existential risks” of what could happen if this technology were to fall into the wrong hands and be used in a “potentially devastating way”.
“Don’t we need sufficient control measures before it’s too late?” he said. King Charles concluded by appealing to leaders to find ways to harness the benefits of AI and to build international cooperation and consensus to achieve those results. (This statement came after Anthropic cut off access to its Fable and Mythos models only to US customers, shocking the European tech industry and causing many to think about the concept of AI sovereignty.)
“The challenge before you is not just to advance technology, but to ensure that it serves humanity, communities and the natural world,” he said at the end of his speech. “When we embrace the new, we must not lose the timeless.”
The outlet reports that he stayed for about 20 minutes and left the guests discussing these issues with each other. OpenAI sent CFO Sarah Friar to the King’s Summit, and Anthropic sent Tino Cuellar, head of global affairs. When asked for comment, Cuellar said the company was honored to participate in the discussion and was grateful to the King for “bringing together the voices of industry leaders and society at large to discuss the role of AI in contributing to the public good.”
This is not the first time King Charles has spoken out about the challenges and benefits of AI, having previously spoken out in 2023 and 2024. But this summit is especially timely as AI continues to dominate every industry, topic, and conversation format. This month, OpenAI’s Sam Altman, Elon Musk, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei called for a slowdown in AI development, but Nvidia’s Huang and President Donald Trump quickly rejected those calls. “We are leading China in the field of AI,” the president said. “Frankly, I want to keep this country going because we are the most sophisticated country in the world and whoever wins against AI wins.”
It shows how complex the issue has become, with the interests of Big Tech, politics and society colliding. Over the past year, OpenAI and Anthropic have been hinting at blockbuster IPOs, but OpenAI recently said its IPO plans for this year have stalled due to persistent concerns about the safety of AI.
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