Sir Keir Starmer seeks to strengthen diplomatic links with the administration of Donald Trump by changing the emphasis put by the United Kingdom on artificial intelligence towards security cooperation rather than an “awake” accent on the problems of security.
The Secretary of Technology Peter Kyle announced on Friday that the United Kingdom IA The Safety Institute, created only 15 months ago, would be renamed IA security institute.
The body, which has received a budget of 50 million pounds sterling, will no longer focus on the risks associated with prejudices and freedom of expression, but to “advance our understanding of the most serious risks posed by technology” .
Earlier this week, the United Kingdom joined the United States at the IA summit in Paris by refusing to sign a joint press release-approved by a 60 states, including France, Germany, India and the China – who is committed to ensuring that “AI is open, inclusive, transparent, ethical, safe, secure and trustworthy”.
Officials said recent moves in AI were part of a broader strategy at a time when the Trump administration is engaged in a trade war against China and the EU. Some believe that the alignment of American priorities on AI could help the United Kingdom avoid being targeted in other areas.
During the AI summit in Paris this week, US vice-president JD Vance warned against AI “excessive” regulations and said the country build systems “ideological biases”. Meanwhile, Trump’s confidant Elon Musk, said during an event in Dubai on Thursday that he feared that “if, hypothetically, AI was designed to think of any dei, he might think that too much men are in power and execute them. ”
The new UK ambassador to the United States Peter Mandelson said that his “signature policy” would promote collaboration between the technological sectors of the two countries, in order to guarantee that the two countries could obtain a “logical advantage” on the China.
“It would be disastrous that we lose in the west the loss of advanced technological race in China and that China obtains a technological workforce,” said Mandelson, adding that “the backbone” of the special relationship between The United States and the United Kingdom lies in its defense, intelligence and security partnerships.
Great Britain’s decision to get closer to the United States on AI has been criticized by technological experts and civil society groups which argue that the United Kingdom overestimates what it has to offer, while Islanding European allies to technological regulations.
“The United States is engaged in AI imperialism,” said Herman Narula, director general of the IA British Society, improbable. “The thing that interests them is access to our market. What do they need others for us?
For the United Kingdom to present an attractive proposal in the United States, it will have to make serious concessions on what it can offer, including the rules of lax around the entries used to form AI models and a less approach Strict RGPD, said Narula.
At the AI top, people informed the American decision not to sign the joint press release said that it had not made a sufficient distinction between the use of technology by democratic and authoritarian regimes – and stressed that China was signatory.
A Labor MP described the United Kingdom’s decision not to sign the declaration as a “low cost way to send a clear geopolitical signal”, adding that it was “exactly the right decision”.
People close to the United Kingdom’s decision argued that the decision had been on the spot, arguing that it was more the result of limited efforts that the French hosts of the summit made to secure the signatories.
The British government said that the declaration “had not given enough practical clarity on global governance, nor addressed enough more difficult issues around national security and the challenge that AI poses a critical objective for the United Kingdom”.
When the AI Security Institute was launched for the first time last year, Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said he would explore “all risks, damage such as prejudices and disinformation, at risk The most improbable but extreme, such as the loss of AI control “, to humanity”. .
Since then, Starmer has so far prevented the publication of his IA security bill pending greater clarity from the United States government, according to informed persons. The law would theoretically make voluntary agreements on pre-commercial tests of models by AISI with companies such as Meta, Amazon and Openai, in legally restrictive obligations.
Gregory C. Allen, director of the Wadhwani AI Center of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that “security is associated with censorship on social media platforms because it is the security teams of some of these platforms that were Responsible for the decision to remove Donald Trump from the main platforms. ”
Allen said he would not be surprised if the United States changed the name of his own AISI in the near future. The body has so far had trouble hiring personnel in a context of deep political uncertainty. Last week, it appeared that the inaugural director of the Institute, Elizabeth Kelly, was out of her role.
Jakob Mökander, Director of Sciences and Technological Policy at Tony Blair Institute, said that the UK AISI was the “best funded in the world”, so if the United States continued to collaborate with the United Kingdom, He could continue to “have an AI security institute but send all his models to the United Kingdom for tests”.
Lord Peter Ricketts, former British national security adviser and permanent secretary of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, expressed skepticism that the continuation of the collaboration on AI would be a fruitful component of diplomacy.
“The ecosystem of the American AI is so vast that any contribution to the United Kingdom could only make a marginal contribution and part of this would be our convenience power,” he said. “If we align ourselves with the United States and we contradict the EU which will surely weaken our ability to come together-and perhaps damage reset [with the EU]. “”
Additional reports from Chloé Cornish to Dubai
