Tackling AI security risks to unleash growth and deliver Plan for Change

UK’s AI Safety Institute becomes ‘UK AI Security Institute’.

Safeguarding Britain’s national security - a key pillar of the government’s Plan for Change - and protecting citizens from crime - will become founding principles of the UK’s approach to the responsible development of artificial intelligence from today (Friday 14 February), as the Technology Secretary sets out his vision for a revitalised AI Security Institute in Munich. 

Speaking at the Munich Security Conference and just days after the conclusion of the AI Action Summit in Paris, Peter Kyle has today recast the AI Safety Institute the ‘AI Security Institute’. This new name will reflect its focus on serious AI risks with security implications, such as how the technology can be used to develop chemical and biological weapons, how it can be used to carry out cyber-attacks, and enable crimes such as fraud and child sexual abuse.

The Institute will also partner across government, including with the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, the Ministry of Defence’s science and technology organisation, to assess the risks posed by frontier AI.   

As part of this update, the Institute will also launch a new criminal misuse team which will work jointly with the Home Office to conduct research on a range of crime and security issues which threaten to harm British citizens.