Andy Burnham has recognised “risks to national security” posed by artificial intelligence, as a prominent safety researcher at Anthropic suggested the technology could destroy humanity over the coming decade.
The Prime Minister was questioned in the Commons regarding the potential hazards of AI after Evan Hubinger cautioned he believed there was a greater than 10 per cent probability of a species-ending threat within 10 years.
This follows reports in the Financial Times that US firm Anthropic withheld its newest model from the UK’s AI Safety Institute, one of the premier global bodies for evaluating the technology’s risks.
Asked about the report by Liberal Democrat leader Sir Ed Davey during Prime Minister’s Questions, Mr Burnham said: “He is absolutely right that AI poses risks to our national security, but it also could be the source of solutions to keeping us safer.”
“The offer is open to colleagues on all sides of the House to be part of that crucial discussion,” he said.
Earlier on Wednesday, Mr Hubinger laid out his concerns about the potential advancement of AI in a post on social media.
“We really do earnestly believe AI could kill all humans! I personally think it is >10% within the next decade. I believe Anthropic is trying its best, but we do not yet have a plan to solve alignment for superintelligence and are not clearly on track to,” he wrote on X.
His post came in response to another Anthropic researcher, Jacob Coxon, warning that a race between companies towards self-improving superintelligence was “gambling with our lives”, as he resigned from his role at the firm.
Announcing his departure, Mr Coxon said that Anthropic and OpenAI, its main competitor, were not “acting responsibly” and that people outside of AI labs were underestimating the power of the technology.
“The people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade. This is not a marketing stunt,” he said.
“No other human activity poses this level of danger.”
Former Cabinet Office minister Darren Jones called for a new multi-national treaty to regulate the development of the technology after the researchers’ warnings.
In a letter to the Prime Minister, UN secretary general Antonio Guterres and OECD secretary general Mathias Cormann, he wrote: “The debate ranges from the end of humanity to claims of ‘marketing hype’ pre-IPO. Either way, governments must now step in.
“We need a new multi-national treaty for the regulated and safe development of superintelligence.
“Not a ban on innovation or scientific endeavour, but a safety first approach to the rapid development of this technology.”
A Cabinet Office spokesperson said: “The UK is a world leader in AI security and we have the best-funded, best-resourced security institute globally.
“The AI Security Institute continues to collaborate closely with industry partners, including Anthropic, to make models safer. Only last week it tested OpenAI’s most powerful model GPT-6 Astra before public release.
“These risks do not stop at national borders and no country can tackle them alone. The UK will continue to test the most advanced models, build a rigorous scientific understanding of their capabilities and risks, and ensure policy decisions are grounded in the evidence.”
