Sunak sounds the alarm on AI

‘Dr Death’ was the nickname bestowed on Rishi Sunak by one scientist during Covid. But ‘Dr Doom’ seemed a more apt sobriquet at certain points during his big speech today on artificial intelligence. The Prime Minister evoked the spectre of humanity ‘losing control of AI completely’ to a ‘superintelligence’ that could result in ‘extinction’. He warned of a world in which AI facilitated chemical weapons, disinformation and child sexual abuse. Therefore, governments ought to step up, he argued, as ‘only nation states have the power and legitimacy to keep their people safe’.

How best to do this then? Sunak this morning announced the world’s first AI safety institute in the UK to explore ‘all the risks – from social harms like bias and misinformation, through to the most extreme risks’. But fundamentally he believes the answer is not a ‘rush to regulate’, asking: ‘How can we write laws that make sense for something we don’t yet fully understand?’ Instead, he believes, the solution lies in research and collaboration: researching AI’s capabilities and working with foreign governments to mitigate its risks.

Sunak