The future of AI depends on global inclusion

As leaders from around the world gather in the UK to discuss AI safety, my top priority is ensuring those with different voices, much like my own, are heard.?

I became an engineer because of my dad. As a child, I watched him sitting around the house drawing designs for heart pacemakers, fitting computer chips into tiny packages to save lives.

It was art, math and science rolled into one - and made all the more remarkable when you consider my dad's own journey. He was schooled in an orphanage in Lebanon. My siblings and I grew up as first generation Arab-Americans in the state of Indiana. We attended public school and English was not the primary language in our house for many years. When I went to university to study electrical engineering, I often attended classes where I was one of the only women out of a hundred students.

This experience meant I grew up always feeling a little different. Looking back, it made me who I am today. It made me appreciate the importance of bringing in diverse voices and perspectives,? and this has been a north star throughout my career - in the semiconductor industry, venture capital, startups, and now at Google DeepMind .?

As leaders from around the world gather in the UK this week to discuss AI safety, this remains a key priority for me. The summit takes place at a critical time. In AI, nothing feels as urgent or important as the opportunity to address humanity's biggest challenges. Google DeepMind’s AlphaFold, as one example, is transforming biology, helping scientists to develop new understanding of diseases and tackling other protein-related issues. While my father’s work evolved over decades, today we are seeing scientific progress at digital speed.?

This pace of innovation means we have to be proactive in thinking about our responsibility. This isn’t a ‘nice to have’, it’s essential to what we build and how we do it.This requires an inclusive approach. If we are just talking among ourselves, we’re missing out on so much. We need to bring in diverse global voices - civil society, academia, interdisciplinary thought leaders.

This inclusive approach has been at the heart of Google DeepMind's approach for years. Since I joined the company in 2018, we have collaborated with groups like The Aspen Institute on A Blueprint for Equitable AI , improving AI education and inclusion of historically marginalized groups. We've supported research into decoloniality theory and gender identity. We worked with the Drugs for Neglected Diseases initiative - DNDi to explore cures for little-researched conditions in the global south. These are just a few examples and they reinforce the value of engagement with the broader community.

The UK’s AI Summit can’t be an endpoint. It has to be the beginning of a global process, bringing together voices from around the world. We will go farther if countries work together.

If my dad’s story taught me one thing it's that the wider you engage, the better the outcomes for everyone.