How should a Labour Government respond to AI risks?

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Artificial Intelligence (AI) is becoming a key area of industrial strategy and international cooperation and competition.

AI has made much progress over the past decade, which has been called the “AI Summer”. In particular, the launch of ChatGPT has rocketed AI up the agenda of many companies and governments. AI progress is likely to continue at a rapid pace over the coming decade.

In the words of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, AI poses a “serious risk of misuse, drastic accidents, and societal disruption”. AI could be misused by terrorists or criminals, or by autocrats to entrench authoritarianism. AI systems are brittle: while remarkably capable, they are not robust, unreliable and have many unsolved problems, including safety and accident risks. 

The rollout of AI poses systemic risks to global geopolitics, such as by destabilising the international balance of power and escalating conflicts at ‘machine speed’.

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