UK's Burnham welcomes AI bosses' focus on risks of emerging technology

UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham has welcomed the new focus on the dangers AI could pose to the world from the industry leaders developing the new technology, Downing Street said.

The prime minister thinks it is a "good thing" that leading AI figures are publicly speaking about the risks from the technology to global security, his official spokesman said.

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, 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.

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.

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."

By David Lynch and John Besley, Press Association

source: PA

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