The world must urgently develop guardrails to contain the threat posed by artificial intelligence, Britain’s foreign secretary is set to warn.
Yvette Cooper will say that AI may become the “greatest security challenge of the next decade,” calling for international cooperation to stamp out the risks. Her call was backed by UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres.
Ms Cooper will draw parallels between AI and efforts around nuclear safety in the wake of the Second World War and the atomic bombings of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For generations the world has been able to build and rely on nuclear power stations, nuclear technology and the containment of nuclear weapons only because of the principles agreed and safety commitments made by global powers,” she will say in a piece to be published by the think tank Chatham House.
“But there are no such agreed principles between global powers on AI. On nuclear, international agreement came only after the world saw the terrifying power of the new technology at Hiroshima - and asked what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands. We cannot afford to wait for an AI equivalent of Hiroshima before we act.”
A recent report for the United Nations warned of potentially “catastrophic outcomes” from AI being used to facilitate cybercrime, fraud and disinformation. It said the development of the technology was outpacing governments’ ability to adapt.
Mr Guterres on Monday warned that AI is developing faster than anyone can keep up, calling for globally harmonised rules to reduce potential risks - especially to children.
"A technology that can reshape economies, transform the world of work, sway elections and tilt the balance of security is being deployed faster than anyone, including the people building it, can keep up," Mr Guterres told delegates at the first-ever government-level global dialogue on AI in Geneva.
"Innovation needs guardrails.… If AI is to be powerful, it must be governed," Mr Guterres told delegates. The two-day inaugural UN Global Dialogue on AI Governance is not intended to forge a treaty, but to discuss how to set rules to mitigate the potential harms of AI and take advantage of its opportunities. Delegates will consider a report by a UN-backed independent scientific panel of 40 experts, who will present their findings from the first global, independent scientific assessment of AI.
The Five Eyes intelligence agencies, comprising the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, last month issued a rare communique arguing that AI-driven attacks that could overwhelm the defences of government and business were only months away.
It came after Anthropic PBC initially limited the release of its Mythos model over fears it could be used to find cyber vulnerabilities.
Ms Cooper will say Britain is well placed to lead the debate on AI regulation after hosting the world’s first AI Safety Summit in 2023, a conference that brought together world leaders and tech bosses, including Elon Musk.
“We can only take advantage of the amazing opportunities frontier technologies can bring if there is sufficient international consensus on how to approach safety and guardrails,” she will say.
She will outline risks including rapid development of autonomous weapons systems capable of direct killing, radicalising chatbots driving extremism and real-world attacks, and AI-generated child sexual abuse.
She will also argue that global instability is increasingly being felt directly in British life, from rising energy and food prices to cyber-attacks, migration pressures and economic disruption driven by conflict abroad.
She will warn that the UK must act faster to rebuild power, so that it can "shape the world rather than be shaped by it".
