UK's Yvette Cooper warns AI threat demands global rules before catastrophe strikes

UK's Cooper warns of an AI 'Hiroshima' without rules

UK foreign secretary Yvette Cooper says AI could become the "greatest security challenge of the next decade," and warns the world cannot wait for an "AI equivalent of Hiroshima" before agreeing international guardrails, in an essay for Chatham House. Britain's foreign secretary has a stark analogy for artificial intelligence. Do not wait for its Hiroshima moment before writing the rules. Yvette Cooper will warn that AI could become the "greatest security challenge of the next decade," according to Bloomberg. She sets it out in an essay for the Chatham House think tank, published on Monday. Governments, she argues, must agree international guardrails before the technology outpaces them. She spelled out her thinking in an interview with the Guardian too. The Hiroshima parallel Cooper reaches for the nuclear age to make her point. "On nuclear, international agreement came only after the world saw the terrifying power of the new technology at Hiroshima," she writes. "We cannot afford to wait for an AI equivalent of Hiroshima before we act." The message is simple. Rules should come before catastrophe, not after it. She wants the big powers at the table, the United States and China included. AI, she told the Guardian, "is going to end up being the dominant foreign policy issue that we deal with over the next two years." That is a bold claim for a job that usually turns on wars and trade. Why now The warning does not come from nowhere. A recent UN report cautioned that AI could fuel cybercrime, fraud and disinformation on a large scale. It also found the technology outrunning governments. The risks are not hypothetical either. Anthropic once held back a powerful model over fears it could help find cyber vulnerabilities. Cooper argues Britain is well placed to convene. It hosted the world's first AI Safety Summit in 2023. That event drew world leaders and tech bosses, including Elon Musk. UK bodies are already building technical safety guardrails for advanced systems. The harder question Getting the US and China to agree on anything is the catch. Cooper's own essay says Britain should expect less from Washington. She sees the US stepping back from its old role as a global referee. A world where the US pulls back is exactly the world in which shared AI rules are hardest to strike. There is a domestic reading too. The essay lands as Labour figures position themselves for a likely Andy Burnham government. Reports tip David Miliband for her job. A sweeping foreign-policy statement is, among other things, a marker of ambition. But the core point stands on its own. AI safety is moving from conference halls into the centre of foreign policy. The window to shape it is narrowing. Cooper's bet is that the world acts before its Hiroshima, not after.

AI poses 'Hiroshima'-style threat to humanity without global rules, says Cooper

Exclusive: Foreign secretary warns of combined risks of AI, climate crisis, irregular migration and foreign interference Artificial intelligence poses a "Hiroshima"-style risk to humanity if governments do not agree to curb how it is developed, the foreign secretary has warned. Yvette Cooper urged countries, including the US and China, to agree international rules for AI, telling the Guardian she believes the issue will dominate foreign policy over the next two years. In an essay covering her thoughts on everything from emerging technology to Palestine, Cooper said the world was at a dangerous moment, not least because of what she sees as the permanent withdrawal of the US from its role as a global arbiter. And in a separate interview with the Guardian she spelled out her concerns over AI and the Palestine peace process in particular. In her piece being published on Monday by the Chatham House thinktank, the foreign secretary said: "On nuclear, international agreement came only after the world saw the terrifying power of the new technology at Hiroshima - and asked what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands. We cannot afford to wait for an AI equivalent of Hiroshima before we act." She told the Guardian: "Across the world, people are feeling the same thing - there is amazing potential here, but there is also huge risk. We are already in a world where we have malign actors who will use technology against us - whether that be hybrid threats, whether that be state-backed criminal groups or other kinds of organisations, or extremists and terror groups." She added: "I think AI is going to end up being the dominant foreign policy issue that we deal with over the next two years." Cooper identified AI as just one area threatening global security at the moment as she also warned about the impact of the climate crisis, irregular migration and foreign interference on western liberal democracy. Her essay gives one of the clearest and most comprehensive pictures of the foreign secretary's worldview and where she thinks her department should devote its attention in the coming years. It comes as senior Labour figures jostle for position in a likely Andy Burnham cabinet, with her former colleague David Miliband being tipped for a return to the Foreign Office in her place. Miliband will share his own thoughts on foreign policy in a lecture on Thursday entitled "Power and its missing guardrails". Cooper writes in her essay that European powers need to adjust to the idea that the US will no longer guarantee international peace and democracy, even after the end of Donald Trump's presidency. "We should no longer expect the US to play the role it once did," she says. "There will continue to be issues where we disagree. But reduced dependence on any single ally will make us stronger." One answer, she says in her essay, is for the UK and EU to negotiate a more permanent settlement instead of trying constantly to renegotiate individual elements of their trading arrangements. The government is putting the finishing touches on the latest round of EU renegotiation as ministers look to strike new deals on agriculture and electricity trading as well as visas for young people. They were due to be announced at a summit later this month, but that has been pushed back as EU officials hope to engage with the incoming Burnham government first. Cooper argues in her essay: "We need to develop a new, structured relationship with Europe, leading the development of its new security architecture, with a more European Nato at its core. And we must settle our relationship with the EU as a closer but stable partnership, rather than one based on endless incremental bargaining." She did not say, however, what shape that more stable partnership should take. Burnham told the Guardian last year he wanted the UK to rejoin the bloc, but has said more recently he would not seek to pursue that if he becomes prime minister. And she warns that with Trump preoccupied with the war in Iran and the world turning its attention to other regions, countries were at risk of forgetting about delivering peace in Palestine. She told the Guardian: "You have the 20-point plan ... [but] my big worry is that it is running into the ground."