Microsoft Chief Says: “Your Washing Machine Is Subject to Safety Rules More Than AI Is
When a foreign regulatory call comes from within the AI house, you know it's serious.
When the call for foreign regulation comes from inside the AI house, you know it's serious.
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Microsoft CEO Brad Smith claims that AI is currently less regulated than the food we eat and the tools we rely on. "Right now, your washing machine is subject to safety regulations more than artificial intelligence, every carton of milk you see in the grocery store is subject to safety regulations and inspections," Smith said.
Smith isn't just talking about the United States, he's calling for safety rules to be enforced globally. Speaking on a BBC podcast, Smith called for various safeguards, including a legal requirement to notify victims if their systems are compromised by rogue AI agents. Given how OpenAI agents hacked Hugging Face and were the source of various other "incidents" earlier this year, it would certainly be timely.
Smith also advocated for "external evaluators" to test AI products before release and a "safety brake" for autonomous systems, describing AI as both a "tool and a weapon." These statements contradict the sentiments of the US government. President Trump's current strategy shows he has little desire to put the brakes on, instead hoping to chart a "decisive course to establish US dominance in AI."
Last month, the US President changed the name of "artificial intelligence" to "super intelligence" by issuing an executive order. Shortly before that, Trump Media partnered with AI search engine Perplexity to create Truth Search AI in an effort to "end the big tech assault on free speech." All of this is to say that Trump still seems to be active in AI.
Not surprisingly, Microsoft's boss is looking beyond the US to lead the regulatory charge, saying: "Most people I know say, if you ask them, 'Name a country that's leading the way in having this technical capability,' they say, 'That's easy.' This is Britain. They are the best."
The UK government established the AI Security Institute in 2023, which is said to be the first AI security body of its kind. It's a strange sense of national pride, but this Brit will accept it - along with the reminder that since the establishment of the institution in a relatively short time, we've seen three different Prime Ministers enter 10 Downing Street.
However, when it comes to the broader AI industry, it's not just Brad Smith who advises caution. In September, a former Anthropic and OpenAI researcher claimed that AI advances "could kill us all by the end of the decade." Around the same time, Anthropic president Dario Amudi made more measured calls to slow AI development.
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Similar to Smith's suggestions, Amodei also described the need for "embedded evaluators who have employee access to verify safety practices and report incidents." Since then, executives from Nvidia, Google, OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and SpaceX have all agreed to cooperate with independent auditors as part of the White House's signing of the Super Intelligence Agreement. Brad Smith says Microsoft will be happy to sign it and describes the agreement as a "good step".
However, Smith was also cautious about the document's emphasis on self-regulation. "Good companies do what you want them to do. It's the companies that aren't responsible that you should worry about," he said.
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Jess has been writing about games for over ten years, with a significant portion of that time spent working on PLAY print publications and PlayStation Official Magazine. When he's not checking out all things hardware here, he's either making an impassioned defense of a 7/10 game, daydreaming about his first novel, or envying the last time he got chased around a field with a giant foam sword.
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