A transparent and innovative environment is essential to the development of artificial development, according to a systems engineering professor, although the industry also needs to be properly regulated to prevent the technology from being misused.

William Wong, the director of Chinese University's Centre for Innovation and Technology and a lawmaker, also described as a "surprise" the snub by the United States and the United Kingdom to an international AI declaration at the end of a summit in Paris.

The document, endorsed by dozens of nations including China, India and hosts France, pledges an open, inclusive and ethical approach to AI development.

Speaking on RTHK's Hong Kong Today programme, Wong said it is common for industry representatives to come together and discuss the path forward for AI.

"We have been doing that in all universities, not to mention nations, because we understand that artificial intelligence, when you want to apply it, it's high risk because you... leave everything to a machine," he explained.

"What happens if it misbehaves?"

He added the agreement is just the first step of collaboration towards the goal of developing open, transparent, trustworthy and ethical AI technologies.

'What they have to do is to share more information, and then they would come to a consensus and write out guidelines. When you look at what is happening now, for example even in America, the UK, and France and China, their governments have also issued guidelines in the ethical part of AI."

Asked if DeepSeek, the Chinese language model developed by a Hangzhou-based startup, could face stiff competition, Wong said that's not necessarily a bad thing.

"You call it competition from the business side. But also you should look... (from the perspective of) the advancement of sciences as well," he said.

"You have to compare with each other; you compete with each other. And then it comes with more advanced technology. You should look at the positive side of it."