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The UK must not depend on foreign AI that could be cut off at short notice, the new head of the Alan Turing Institute has said. George Williamson made the comments in an interview with Dan Milmo for The Guardian.
“We shouldn’t depend solely on systems we can’t inspect or control, or that could be restricted or even switched off,” Williamson said.
He pointed to defence, national security, critical infrastructure and healthcare as areas where AI is now built in.
Lessons from the Anthropic ban
His warning comes after Washington in June blocked foreign access to Anthropic’s top models for a time.
“Both political and commercial pressures mean we may not have access in all the circumstances when we want it,” he said.
Williamson said the UK should have some AI it does not need anyone’s permission to use. The institute cannot match the budgets of big AI labs, he added, but it could build smaller, nationally owned models for start-ups.
“We can be ambitious here without trying to copy what frontier labs are doing,” he said.
A new focus on resilience
Williamson, who ran the government unit that builds gadgets for UK spy agencies, took over the institute this year. The government, its main funder, had demanded a change of direction.
He said “national resilience” would now be its main focus, from guarding critical systems to spotting state-backed disinformation.
Williamson also doubted claims about AI wiping out humanity. He said he had not seen convincing evidence behind the percentages some in the industry quote.
His comments echo Europe’s leaders. The ECB’s Christine Lagarde has warned that Europe risks being cut off from US and Chinese AI.
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