No 10 To Warn About Risks Of Using AI In Bioweapon Creation

Concerns that criminals or terrorists could use artificial intelligence to cause mass destruction will dominate discussion at a summit of world leaders as concern grows in Downing Street about the power of the next generation of technological advances.

- Kiran Stacey, Dan Milmo

British officials are touring the world before the AI safety summit in November as they look to build consensus over a joint statement which would warn about the dangers of rogue actors using the technology to cause death on a large scale.

Some of those around the prime minister, Rishi Sunak, worry the technology will soon be powerful enough to help individuals create bioweapons or even evade human control.

Officials have become increasingly concerned about such possibilities, and the need for regulation to mitigate them, after recent discussions with senior technology executives. Last week, the scientist behind a landmark letter calling for a pause in developing powerful AI systems said tech executives privately agreed with the concept of a hiatus but felt they were locked into an AI arms race with rivals.

One person briefed on the summit conversations said: "The point of the summit is going to be to warn about the risks of 'frontier Al' - that's what Downing Street is focusing on most right now." Frontier Al is a term used to refer to the most advanced AI models that could be dangerous enough to pose a risk to human life.

Sunak has been warning about the risks posed by AI for several months, urging the international community to adopt guardrails to prevent it being misused.

On Friday, the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden, told world leaders at the UN general assembly: "Because tech companies and non-state actors often have country-sized influence and prominence in AI, this challenge requires a new form of multilateralism."

Officials have been alarmed by recent developments in AI models. Last year, an AI tool took just six hours to suggest 40,000 different potentially lethal molecules, some of which were similar to VX, the most potent nerve agent ever developed.