Governments risk repeating mistakes made during the dawn of the nuclear age if they wait to create laws governing artificial intelligence, warned UK Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper.
“Last month, in Shenzhen, China, I saw the extraordinary promise of AI and robotics used for life-saving healthcare,” Cooper wrote. “But the same technologies are also reshaping the future of warfare, crime and social cohesion in alarming ways.”
Cooper said managing the risks posed by AI may become “the greatest security challenge of the next decade” and argued governments need international agreements around frontier technology before a crisis forces action.
She compared the current race to develop AI systems with the early nuclear arms race, saying global safety agreements emerged only after countries witnessed the devastation caused by atomic weapons.
Cooper’s warning comes after months of escalating concerns over how governments should oversee increasingly powerful AI systems.
