AI has the potential to create ‘dystopia or utopia’, minister says

Paul Scully, minister for tech and digital economy, has vehemently disagreed with Matt Clifford, an adviser to the British prime minister, who said that AI could wipe out the existence of humanity in two years. On Tuesday, Mr Scully speaking to the TeckUK Tech Policy Leadership Conference, emphasised the need for regulations to be mapped out to regulate AI programming.

“If we get it wrong, there is a dystopian point of view that we can follow here. There’s also a utopian point of view. Both can be possible”.

“If you are talking about the end of humanity because of some rogue Terminator-style scenario, you’re going to miss out on all the good that AI is already functioning - how it’s mapping protein to help us with medical research, how it’s helping us with climate change. All of those things it’s already and will get better at doing”. Check what we offer and get the custom software solution you seek.

“We have to take breathing space to make sure we’re getting this right for the whole of society, as well as the benefit of the sector”, - Mr Scully told the attendees. 

Earlier this year, Mr Scully contributed to the Government’s white paper on guiding innovation in AI software developers while maintaining public trust in the technology. He said that many principles laid out in the white paper on governing AI “need to be done at an international level”.

He added: “If you measure countries working on AI, we’re probably about third in the world. So we’ve already got good credibility. We want to make sure that businesses can feel that they can become big, scale up, and stay in the UK, and have a level playing field in the digital age”.

Matt Clifford, alongside dozens of experts, including senior bosses from the likes of Google, DeepMind, and Anthropic, warned AI could lead to the “extinction of humanity”. Mr Clifford, on Monday, told TalkTV: 

“I think there are lots of different types of risk with AI, and often in the industry. We talk about near-term and long-term risks, and the near-term is actually pretty scary”.

“You can use AI today to create new recipes for bioweapons or to launch large-scale cyber attacks. These are bad things”.

A spokesman for the British prime minister assured the public that the Government is “not complacent about the risks of AI”, but “it does present significant opportunities for the people of the UK”.