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The Guardian - UK
The Guardian - UK
Technology
Robert Booth UK technology editor

UK lawmakers urge Burnham to back ban on superintelligent AI after chilling warnings

A skeletal purple hand reaches forward before split black-and-white OpenAI and Anthropic logos
OpenAI and Anthropic were ‘gambling with our lives’, one AI researcher said this week after quitting his job at Anthropic. Photograph: Dado Ruvić/Reuters

More than 70 MPs and peers have urged Andy Burnham to back a ban on the creation of artificial superintelligence (ASI) and lead an international movement to stop the technology after a week of warnings from experts of a 10% chance it could kill all humans.

Fifteen former government ministers, along with the former head of the civil service Robin Butler, senior Labour MPs including John McDonnell and leading Conservatives, Liberal Democrat and Scottish National party MPs have written to the prime minister. They urged him to throw the government’s weight behind a bill, tabled in the Commons on Tuesday, that would prohibit ASI – an as-yet-nonexistent AI that would outcompete human capabilities in most domains.

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