WIREDGOV

Britain's AI sovereignty depends on prohibiting superintelligence and keeping humans in control.

For much of my career in government, including my years serving as the UK’s Defence Secretary, I believed that the prospect of nuclear war was the most dangerous threat facing humanity. The information I was privy to regarding the scale of destruction that nuclear war would bring made me feel the immense responsibility that nuclear powers have to avoid nuclear conflict at all costs.

Now, however, as I retire from the House of Lords, increasingly it is clear that the development of superintelligent AI constitutes a threat analogous in scale to that of nuclear war. Indeed, world-leading AI scientists and even the CEOs of the top AI companies warn that a fully developed superintelligent AI would pose an existential risk to humanity.

Despite this, the largest AI companies are continuing to develop superintelligent AI that would be vastly more capable than humans across every domain and capable of evading human oversight and control. Such AIs autonomously would compromise the UK’s sovereignty and national security, and upend international stability.

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