The British Government has announced a series of measures which it says will protect the nation from the risks posed by increasingly powerful AI.
Ironically it has tasked frontier AI models with strengthening cyber defences, examining stronger legal protections and preparing for serious incidents involving autonomous AI systems.
It says the move builds on two pilots that have already helped identify and fix over a thousand potential cyber vulnerabilities across government systems, and detect potential cyber threats.
Extending the programme will help protect the public services people rely on every day to reduce risk in the short-term, and will support longer-term adoption across the public sector, according to the Government.
Speaking at Imperial College London’s science and tech incubator, Base One, AI Minister Kanishka Narayan argued for a whole-society approach to resilience in the face of emerging AI risks, so that this technology continues to serve British people’s interests and boost our prosperity, as well as our security.
The Minister also warned that as frontier AI systems become increasingly powerful and capable of acting autonomously, the potential consequences of failures or malicious use could become far more serious.
The Minister also confirmed that scientists at Britain’s AI Security Institute are now conducting rigorous evaluations of the latest generation of advanced AI models, following work with leading AI developers and the US Government.
“I want Britain to become one of the hardest countries in the world to attack using artificial intelligence,” said Narayan.
“We will use every power at our disposal. We will legislate wherever necessary. And we won’t look to law alone. We will look to British ingenuity: our scientific expertise, technological capabilities and institutions to understand these increasingly powerful systems, defend against emerging threats and respond when things go wrong.
“And to the companies developing the world’s most powerful AI systems, my message is: Listen when your scientists warn of serious dangers. Investigate unexpected behaviour. And if you cannot adequately control the risks, do not release the system.”
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Cyber Minister Liz Lloyd said: “As cyber incidents continue to disrupt globally, organisations large and small, private and public, are all being confronted with an undeniable reality – it’s now business-critical to ensure you’re on the front-foot when it comes to cyber security.
“Through scaling up projects piloting AI to protect public services and progressing a Cyber Bill to boost our defences, Government is putting cyber security and AI preparedness at the heart of the UK’s digital future.”
Alongside these measures, the Government will explore strengthening parts of the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill and the wider regime, to ensure the UK’s essential services such as hospitals and utilities are better protected from emerging AI related risk. This includes AI loss of control risk, where autonomous AI systems evade human oversight.
Work is also underway with the National Cyber Security Centre and the AI Security Institute to look at how incidents involving AI agents – which can perform complex tasks with little human supervision – should be responded to.
A major incident involving AI agents could play out quicker and wider than other major incidents that governments are designed to respond to, and rising to this challenge will require the development of new expertise and capabilities.
In addition to this, the government will look at how near-miss incidents can be identified and reported as well as ensuring lessons can be learned quickly to reduce the risk of future harm. The detail of any measures will be worked through with parliamentarians, as well as technical experts and the operators who would need to deliver them.