Peter Kyle, secretary of state for Science, Innovation and Technology will use the Munich Security Conference as a platform to re-name the UK’s AI Safety Institute to the AI Security Institute.
According to a statement from the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology Press, the new name “reflect [the AI Security Institute’s] focus on serious AI risks with security implications, such as how the technology can be used to develop chemical and biological weapons, how it can be used to carry out cyber attacks, and enable crimes such as fraud and child sexual abuse”.
The AI Security Institute will not, the government said, focus on bias or freedom of speech, but on advancing the understanding of the most serious risks posed by AI technology. The department said safeguarding Britain’s national security and protecting citizens from crime will become founding principles of the UK’s approach to the responsible development of artificial intelligence.
Kyle will set out his vision for a revitalised AI Security Institute in Munich, just days after the conclusion of the AI Action Summit in Paris, where the UK and the US refused to sign an agreement on inclusive and sustainable artificial intelligence (AI). He will also, according to the statement, be “taking the wraps off a new agreement” which has been struck between the UK and AI company Anthropic.
According to the statement: “This partnership is the work of the UK’s new Sovereign AI unit, and will see both sides working closely together to realise the technology’s opportunities, with a continued focus on the responsible development and deployment of AI systems.”
The UK will put in place further agreements with “leading AI companies” as a key pillar of the government’s housebuilding-focused Plan for Change.
Kyle said: “The changes I’m announcing today represent the logical next step in how we approach responsible AI development – helping us to unleash AI and grow the economy as part of our Plan for Change.
“The work of the AI Security Institute won’t change, but this renewed focus will ensure our citizens – and those of our allies – are protected from those who would look to use AI against our institutions, democratic values, and way of life.
“The main job of any government is ensuring its citizens are safe and protected, and I’m confident the expertise our AI Security Institute will be able to bring to bear will ensure the UK is in a stronger position than ever to tackle the threat of those who would look to use this technology against us.”
The AI Security Institute will work with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Ministry of Defence’s science and technology organisation, to assess the risks posed by what the department called “frontier AI”. It will also work with the Laboratory for AI Security Research (LASR), and the national security community, including building on the expertise of the National Cyber Security Centre.
The AI Security Institute will launch a new criminal misuse team which will work jointly with the Home Office to conduct research on a range of crime and security issues. One such area of focus will be on tackling the use of AI to make child sexual abuse images, with this new team exploring methods to help to prevent abusers from harnessing AI to commit crime. This will support work announced previously that make it illegal to own AI tools which have been optimised to make images of child sexual abuse.
The chair of the AI Security Institute, Ian Hogarth, said: “The institute’s focus from the start has been on security and we’ve built a team of scientists focused on evaluating serious risks to the public. Our new criminal misuse team and deepening partnership with the national security community mark the next stage of tackling those risks.”
Dario Amodei, CEO and co-founder of Anthropic, added: “AI has the potential to transform how governments serve their citizens. We look forward to exploring how Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude could help UK government agencies enhance public services, with the goal of discovering new ways to make vital information and services more efficient and accessible to UK residents.
“We will continue to work closely with the UK AI Security Institute to research and evaluate AI capabilities in order to ensure secure deployment.”
