But a number of senior Labour figures were privately starting to name the power of AI as the thing worrying them most, alongside the immediate pressures on the cost of living and fragile economy.<\/p>\n
One cabinet minister \u2013 with a brief unrelated to technology \u2013 told the Guardian that dangerous, out-of-control AI was the issue keeping them up at night, fretting about the threat to humanity. It was \u201cnot killer robots\u201d causing the worry, they explained, but the idea of a huge amount of concentrated, super-intelligent power potentially ending up in the hands of bad actors.<\/p>\n
Another expressed concern that the government was \u201cfalling behind the public\u201d in terms of dealing with worries about AI safety \u2013 and that it needed to catch up fast.<\/p>\n
Ed Miliband was strident about the dangers of AI at the Labour party conference. Photograph: Wiktor Szymanowicz\/Future Publishing\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
In his conference speech, Ed Miliband<\/a> was the most strident about the \u201cdaunting\u201d dangers of AI, making the case that politicians could not and would not allow the profits of tech companies \u201cto come at the expense of our children or indeed humanity\u201d.<\/p>\n And it has not taken long for these alarm bells to ring even louder, with the last seven days looking like the week Westminster fully woke up to the warnings.<\/p>\n A flurry of activity started on Monday with Kanishka Narayan, the AI minister, stating it was \u201clikely, if not inevitable\u201d<\/a> that rogue agents would hack the British state, and saying the UK was looking to strengthen its forthcoming cybersecurity legislation.<\/p>\n Kanishka Narayan said it was \u2018likely, if not inevitable\u2019 that rogue agents would hack the British state. Photograph: Carlos Jasso\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n It was the main topic of discussion at cabinet on Tuesday, and that was followed by the MI5 chief Ken McCallum warning AI was \u201csupercharging the cybersecurity contest between attackers and defenders\u201d. He said the biggest threat was extremist groups<\/a> using the technology to unleash bioweapons \u2013 toxins used to cause death and disease.<\/p>\n Liam Byrne, the chair of the business, innovation, science and trade committee, said the change of government from Keir Starmer to Burnham was partly behind the increased focus on protecting the UK from AI threats but more still had to be done. \u201cThe reality is that the Starmer administration was much too close to the big tech companies,\u201d Byrne said. \u201cAnd Burnham is not, frankly, so there has been a change of posture. Those things, plus the security services issuing their warning, that is what has changed the weather on this.\u201d<\/p>\n One senior Labour government figure agreed that Burnham\u2019s government was taking AI safety warnings more seriously. \u201cI do feel there has been a shift. Under the last lot, too many of them had drunk the tech-bro Kool-Aid,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Ken McCallum, the director general of MI5, warned of extremist groups using AI to unleash bioweapons. Photograph: Jonathan Brady\/WPA\/Getty Images<\/p>\n Byrne\u2019s committee held an evidence session this week with civil service leaders in charge of AI security and executives from the key companies \u2013 Anthropic<\/a>, OpenAI, DeepMind and Meta \u2013 with a split between them about whether government testing of new models should be mandatory.<\/p>\n He said his committee was \u201clighting up\u201d the issue, particularly in terms of working with the US to regulate and monitor new models. It had been reported that Donald Trump\u2019s administration had asked AI companies not to share their latest models with the UK\u2019s cutting-edge AI Security Institute for testing, though Narayan confirmed this week that they had managed to retain cooperation.<\/p>\n But Byrne said the government now needed to seize the moment and take the lead on new regulation, particularly if Trump\u2019s Republicans lost control of Congress in the midterm elections to the Democrats.<\/p>\n \u201cI think the government is still caught in a dilemma between how to keep model access, given a capricious US president, and the safeguards that the industry itself now says are essential. It\u2019s make-your-mind-up time, I would say,\u201d Byrne said.<\/p>\n \u201cThe companies want to cooperate \u2026 It\u2019s not in their commercial interest to issue models which are lethal. Now they too have got to navigate the White House. So I just think this is a moment when the government has actually got to do what is right for the country because Congress is about to change the dynamics on this in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n Liam Byrne said the government now needed to seize the moment and take the lead on new regulation. Photograph: House of Commons<\/p>\n The UK\u2019s upcoming G20 presidency will be the key moment to push for international action to rein in AI. Geoffrey Irving, the former chief scientist at AISI who spoke at this week\u2019s parliamentary hearing<\/a>, believes Whitehall concerns are justified. OpenAI and Anthropic\u2019s technology has already shown its hacking capabilities but their models are released with safety guardrails in place that at least mitigate against the threat of malicious behaviour.<\/p>\n
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