OpenAI and Anthropic Call for Binding AI Rules at UK Parliament

Representatives from OpenAI and Anthropic told a British parliamentary hearing on Tuesday that voluntary pledges are no longer enough to ensure safety and that new laws should be introduced. The Business, Innovation, Science, and Trade Committee held the evidence session with appearances from four frontier artificial intelligence firms, four former staff of the firms turned whistleblowers, and senior British civil servants.

Differing Stviews on Regulation

Anthropic's head of Europe, Liam Booth-Smith, told the committee that rules should be binding and that voluntary commitments are not enough. OpenAI vice president Tom Duff Gordon backed a statutory framework and an international convention, stating that incident reporting should be mandatory. However, rivals Google DeepMind and Meta did not support new legislation. Google DeepMind's Owen Larter told MPs to focus on standards, while Meta's Rob Sherman pointed to existing regulators and said they were not writing on a blank page.

Whistleblower Warnings and Security Concerns

Four former lab researchers also testified, including ex-OpenAI staffer Daniel Kokotajlo, who told MPs the companies cannot be trusted to self-regulate. Steven Adler, who left OpenAI in late 2024, said he was not confident in the safety culture across the industry, and Geoffrey Irving said labs believe they are locked in a race they cannot leave. A few hundred meters away during the hearing, MI5 director Ken McCallum warned that artificial intelligence could be used to create new bioweapons. Civil servants conceded to the committee that Britain's AI Security Institute tests frontier models only when companies choose to hand them over, and Henry de Zoete acknowledged the institute has no ability to prevent a dangerous model from being released.

Context

As artificial intelligence tools advance rapidly, governments around the world are grappling with how to oversee powerful technology companies without slowing down innovation. The debate in the United Kingdom highlights a wider global tension between relying on voluntary industry promises and enforcing strict government rules to manage safety risks.