More than 70 MPs and peers wrote to the prime minister pressing him to support a Commons bill that would prohibit ASI and push for an international coalition, The Guardian reported.
More than 70 UK MPs and peers have urged Prime Minister Andy Burnham to back a ban on creating artificial superintelligence and to lead an international push to stop it, The Guardian reported on September 11. The letter follows Anthropic-linked and other extinction-risk warnings, including claims some experts put as high as a 10% chance ASI could kill all humans.
Signatories include 15 former government ministers, former Cabinet Secretary Robin Butler, senior Labour MP John McDonnell, and leading Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and Scottish National Party MPs, the paper said. They asked Burnham to put the government’s weight behind Labour MP Alex Sobel’s Artificial Superintelligence Security Bill, tabled in the Commons on Tuesday, which would prohibit ASI, described as an as-yet-nonexistent AI that would outcompete human capabilities in most domains.
Sobel told the Guardian that AI companies have made clear they will develop agents without constraint and are trying to develop superintelligence while admitting a significant extinction risk. The campaign cites concerning statements from current and former AI insiders, including Anthropic’s Evan Hubinger and researcher Jacob Coxon, who quit with a viral warning that companies were “gambling with our lives.” The bill mirrors ASI-ban legislation promoted in Washington by Bernie Sanders and is backed by figures including Stuart Russell and Control AI, the Guardian said.
A UK-only ban would have limited bite if frontier models keep being built in the US and China, the paper noted. The parliamentarians instead call on Burnham to use next year’s UK G20 presidency to build “a coalition of the willing” on what they frame as a national and international security threat. A government spokesperson said ministers do not consider the bill’s measures the right approach but are exploring whether additional targeted interventions may be needed for the most significant AI-related national security risks.
This brief covers the letter and government response as reported. It does not evaluate extinction probabilities or treat ASI as an existing product.