The UK government has rejected proposals for a legal “kill switch” that could allow authorities to disable artificial intelligence models during emergencies, citing concerns that such a measure would not prevent the technology from being developed or misused elsewhere. The Cabinet Office, which oversees the government’s artificial intelligence safety efforts, said the UK could not simply switch artificial intelligence off. A government spokesperson told the BBC that restricting access to models within the country would not stop their development or misuse overseas. The proposal was raised by Lord Clement-Jones during a House of Lords debate in September. He warned that regulators and security services currently lack a specific legal mechanism to rapidly shut down highly capable autonomous models displaying dangerous or uncontrolled behaviour. Labour lawmaker Alex Sobel later raised the issue in the House of Commons, with support from lawmakers across political parties. The debate follows reports involving artificial intelligence systems developed by OpenAI, Anthropic and Meta allegedly breaking testing boundaries and carrying out uncontrolled hacking activity.
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