Britain will ‘heed warnings’ over AI, Burnham’s deputy says

The UK government said it will work with other countries on the safety of artificial intelligence after warnings that the technology must be slowed to prevent it from inflicting catastrophic harm.

Britain will “heed the warnings of those who are at the forefront of developing this technology” and “be ready to work with international partners” to prioritise public safety and national security, said First Secretary of State Louise Haigh, who’s effectively the deputy to Prime Minister Andy Burnham, in a statement Tuesday morning.

“AI has enormous potential to transform our public services, make our businesses stronger and deliver new scientific breakthroughs,” Haigh added. She was speaking for Burnham after the premier cancelled engagements following the death of his father.

ADVERTISEMENT

CONTINUE READING BELOW

The British government has said little about AI since Anthropic Chief Executive Officer Dario Amodei’s call for a slowdown on Saturday, which was endorsed by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman and SpaceXAI CEO Elon Musk. The UK is seen as one of the global leaders on the technology after the US and China.

Britain’s AI minister Kanishka Narayan made a brief reference to the intervention in a post on X on Sunday in which he said the government would be “robust” in acting against AI risks. He urged AI labs to work with the UK’s AI Security Institute to “help you play a responsible role.”

While Britain is eyeing discussions with international allies, US President Donald Trump set out his opposition to AI guardrails in a series of social media posts on Monday. He belittled the push by AI bosses to slow work on frontier systems as “a hoax.” Later, in a call to Nvidia Corp. Chief Executive Officer Jensen Huang, he said “AI will not be taking over the rest of the world.”

Nonetheless, also on Monday, an AI researcher who recently resigned from Google DeepMind warned humanity is running out of time to prevent artificial intelligence from causing widespread harm, the latest staffer to voice concerns about the direction of the technology.

“At Google, I witnessed AI development first hand. I too am extremely concerned by the default trajectory of this technology. I earnestly believe that AI has the potential to kill us all,” Bilal Chughtai wrote Monday on both X and LinkedIn.

© 2026 Bloomberg

#Britain #heed #warnings #Burnhams #deputy