Downing Street has broken its silence on fears that artificial intelligence could wipe out humanity, saying it is "a good thing" that companies developing the most advanced systems are now talking openly about the risks as well as the opportunities.
The Prime Minister's official spokesman said the pioneering technology "offers huge opportunities" but there are also "risks". However, he stopped short of calling for Silicon Valley giants to slow down development of the technology.
Industry leaders raise alarm
Dario Amodei, the boss of AI company Anthropic, said on Saturday he was concerned that since this summer, AI has been "advancing drastically faster". Given the rate of development, Mr Amodei said he was worried that within six to 12 months, AI could be capable of leading a swarm that could take over the entire internet.
The entrepreneur, whose company is behind the AI assistant Claude, shared a three-part plan for building the technology at a "balanced rate". His essay, titled We Must Pace The Frontier, was supported by other industry leaders, including Grok boss Elon Musk and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman.
Government response
Asked about the new industry focus on AI safety, the Prime Minister's official spokesman said: "What the Prime Minister thinks is that it’s a good thing that the companies developing the most advanced AI systems are now talking openly about the risks as well as the opportunities.
"These risks cross borders. That’s why we’re working closely with the companies developing the most advanced systems and with our allies and international partners.
"It’s also why the AI Security Institute exists to build a rigorous, scientific understanding of the capabilities of the most advanced AI systems and the risks they pose, so that policy decisions are grounded in evidence rather than speculation."
The spokesman also insisted that AI "offers huge opportunities that we want the UK to tap into", including for transforming how public services are delivered, and raising living standards. However, the spokesman would not directly comment on whether the Prime Minister supported moves by AI chiefs to purposefully slow down the development of the technology.
Calls for regulation
Co-founder of Anthropic, Jack Clark, said AI firms should be required to have a "kill switch" – a way of shutting down the model – which can be checked by a third party. He told the BBC that Anthropic has such a mechanism and most labs have a way to "pull the plug", but that this should be a requirement.
"I think that’s the kind of thing society is going to want to know and might want to eventually pass rules around," he said.
The UK Government last week rejected the idea of a kill switch that could allow the state to intervene if a model malfunctions, warning that AI is inherently borderless and Britain "cannot simply turn AI off".
US President Donald Trump suggested over the weekend that he did not want to see AI development slow down, so that the US does not lose its competitive edge over China.
Downing Street’s comments come as a cross-party group of MPs and peers warned that a new artificial intelligence (AI) Bill is needed "to address the scale and seriousness of threats posed to human rights" by the technology.
In a report published on Monday, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) listed a range of human rights risks which existing regulatory and legal frameworks "are ill-equipped to prevent or respond to". The committee said current UK laws which could apply to AI focus on users rather than designers, adding that regulators lack the power to test and evaluate AI systems before they are released.
It also said the technology threatens the right to privacy, as well as the right of an individual to "seek effective remedy against decisions made against them".
Chairman of the JCHR, Labour MP Alex Sobel, said AI "is moving with such speed and complexity that its impact is hard to accurately predict".
"What is clear is that, at present, we are unprepared to deal with its consequences however potentially dire they may be," he said. "Nowhere in the world, including the UK, has a current legislative and regulatory approach to AI that is fit for purpose.
"New legislation is needed to establish a comprehensive set of protections that deal with the entire AI supply chain and its lifecycle. A single AI regulator should be established to set policy, monitor performance and with the teeth to ensure enforcement."
