United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, Andy Burnham, has said that Britain is ready to lead an international initiative to establish artificial intelligence standards, amid concern that the technology could outpace safeguards and increase national security risks.
He disclosed this during his inaugural speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
“We’ve all heard the warnings which we must heed, I know how worried people are. So we have to rise to this moment,” he stated.
Burnham At his first multinational meeting in New York as Britain’s seventh prime minister in a decade, made AI the focus of his bid for Britain to assume a role on the global stage, rebuilding its diplomatic status.
He said that rather than become a “doom-monger” about AI, he wanted Britain to pursue the huge benefits it could bring while being clear about the risks, which range from safeguards failing to keep up to hostile actors using it to wage an information war.
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Burnham said he would position Britain as an “honest broker” to take a leadership role, citing its close US ties, improving EU relations and decent relations with China and India.
Britain has a world-leading AI security institute, which works with the US and the leading labs on AI safety.
His office said British officials told AI leaders that the country expects full visibility into new frontier models to strengthen preparedness and resilience.
Burnham said fundamental decisions on AI had to be taken by elected governments, not left to tech companies, and he would put AI at the heart of Britain’s presidency of the G20 next year.
“We will work towards agreeing a single set of global principles and standards to ensure the transparency and access we need to increase our preparedness and to ensure that AI development is safe,” he said.
Burnham announced a new National Centre for Information Defence to detect, attribute and disrupt hostile state information attacks and identify deepfakes damaging British interests.
“Today I am tasking our security chiefs to begin work on a new National Centre for Information Defence to detect, attribute and disrupt these kinds of hostile state information attacks to support and defend our democracy,” he said.
Reuters
