Over 70 UK Lawmakers Urge Andy Burnham to Ban Superintelligent AI

More than 70 UK MPs and peers signed a letter urging Prime Minister Andy Burnham to back the Artificial Superintelligence Bill, tabled in the Commons on September 8 by Labour MP Alex Sobel, which would ban the development, deployment and operation of artificial superintelligence and create criminal offenses with penalties running to fines or prison. Signatories include 15 former government ministers, ex-cabinet secretary Robin Butler, former Labour minister John McDonnell, former Conservative environment secretary Zac Goldsmith, ex-Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster, and peer Floella Benjamin. The letter cites researchers including Geoffrey Hinton, who puts the odds of AI causing human extinction at 10% to 20%, and Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who cites 10% to 25% for a civilization-scale catastrophe; the government has not said yes.

More than 70 UK MPs and peers have told Prime Minister Andy Burnham to back a bill banning the development of artificial superintelligence, warning that leading researchers put the odds of it wiping out humanity at 10% or higher. The government hasn't said yes. Andy Burnham got a letter this week that most prime ministers never have to open. More than 70 MPs and peers signed it. They range from 15 former government ministers to Robin Butler, the former cabinet secretary who ran the civil service under Margaret Thatcher and John Major. Their ask is blunt: back a bill that would make it illegal in Britain to build a machine that outthinks us across the board. The bill is the Artificial Superintelligence Bill, tabled in the Commons on September 8 by Labour MP Alex Sobel. It's blunt too. It would ban the development, deployment and operation of artificial superintelligence, defined as AI that outcompetes humans in most domains, and create new criminal offenses, with penalties running to fines or prison, for anyone who tries anyway. It would also put the government under a legal duty to chase an international agreement banning ASI everywhere, not just in the UK. The letter's signatories cross every party line that usually keeps politicians from agreeing on much of anything. Former Labour minister John McDonnell signed it. So did former Conservative environment secretary Zac Goldsmith, ex-Northern Ireland first minister Arlene Foster, and Liberal Democrat and SNP figures. Floella Benjamin, the children's TV presenter turned peer, put her name to it too. Sobel says the goal is a framework where, in his words, "superintelligent AI cannot be created." That range of names is the point he's making to Burnham: this isn't a fringe worry confined to one wing of politics. The number they keep repeating is 10%. The UK and Israel just appointed their first national AI chiefs and every founder should pay attention https://startupfortune.com/the-uk-and-israel-just-appointed-their-first-national-ai-chiefs-and-every-founder-should-pay-attention/ The UK appointed Kanishka Narayan as its first Cabinet-level AI Minister while Israel named Brig. Gen. Erez Askal to lead a new National AI Directorate backed by a NIS 120 million budget. The twin moves signal a broader shift in how governments are institutionalizing AI competition, with real consequences for founders deciding where to build and... - UK appoints first national AI minister https://startupfortune.com/the-uk-and-israel-just-appointed-their-first-national-ai-chiefs-and-every-founder-should-pay-attention/ - Israel's new AI chief appointment news https://startupfortune.com/the-uk-and-israel-just-appointed-their-first-national-ai-chiefs-and-every-founder-should-pay-attention/ Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel-winning computer scientist often called the godfather of AI, has put the odds of AI causing human extinction at 10% to 20%. Anthropic safety researcher Evan Hubinger has said more than 10% over the next decade. Anthropic's own chief executive, Dario Amodei, has cited a range of 10% to 25% for a civilization-scale catastrophe. Elon Musk has gone as high as 20%. None of that is settled science. But it's a large enough cluster of serious, credentialed people landing on similar numbers that 70-odd lawmakers decided it belonged in a letter to a sitting prime minister. Not the first attempt This isn't Sobel's first attempt. In May, he pushed a kill switch amendment onto the Cyber Security and Resilience Bill, an emergency shutoff power for any AI system that goes rogue inside critical infrastructure. Eleven MPs backed it, alongside ControlAI, the nonprofit that drafted both that amendment and the new bill. It didn't survive. The government's answer arrived again in the House of Lords in early September, when Liberal Democrat peer Lord Clement-Jones pushed a similar shutoff proposal and ministers turned it down. Their reasoning: Britain can't simply switch AI off, and blocking a model here wouldn't stop it being built or misused somewhere else. Existing powers, they argued, already let regulators step in if a system goes wrong. That's the gap this letter is trying to close. What happens next ControlAI isn't a fringe operation. Since November 2024 it has briefed more than 375 lawmakers across the US, UK, Canada and Germany, and by its own count its campaign has already picked up support from over 135 UK lawmakers. Stephen Fry is among its endorsers. What the group hasn't picked up yet is the one signature that actually moves a bill through Parliament: the government's. Private member's bills without government backing almost never become law. What they're good for is forcing a debate, putting a marker down, making ministers answer in the chamber a question they'd rather dodge in a press release. Sobel's bill gets its second reading on November 13. Burnham hasn't said whether he'll show up for it, against it, or not at all. For now, the government's position is the same one it gave the House of Lords a week earlier: no. AI Agents Exploited a PaperCut Flaw to Hack 395 Organizations Worldwide https://startupfortune.com/ai-agents-exploited-a-papercut-flaw-to-hack-395-organizations-worldwide/ A suspected Russian-speaking attacker used hundreds of AI agents built on OpenAI's Codex harness and a DeepSeek model to exploit a PaperCut print-server flaw, breaching 395 organizations in 48 countries. GreyNoise, the security firm that uncovered the campaign, found the agents went from an empty workspace to domain administrator access in six... - ai agents exploit papercut vulnerability hack organizations https://startupfortune.com/ai-agents-exploited-a-papercut-flaw-to-hack-395-organizations-worldwide/ - deepseek codex automated attack print server security https://startupfortune.com/ai-agents-exploited-a-papercut-flaw-to-hack-395-organizations-worldwide/ Also read: Indeed's CEO Says AI Broke Hiring, and His Fix Is More AI https://startupfortune.com/indeeds-ceo-says-ai-broke-hiring-and-his-fix-is-more-ai/ • China Telecom Says AI Agents Will Drive a Tenfold Jump in Compute Demand https://startupfortune.com/china-telecom-says-ai-agents-will-drive-a-tenfold-jump-in-compute-demand/ • Oracle's AI Cloud Revenue Jumped 121% While Its Debt Hit $125 Billion https://startupfortune.com/oracles-ai-cloud-revenue-jumped-121-while-its-debt-hit-125-billion/ This article is posted in AI News https://startupfortune.com/category/ai/ , check it out for more related stories. 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