Regulating AI 'not the right place to start' says Bailey

The Governor of the Bank of England has said regulating artificial intelligence (AI) "is not the right place to start" but instead called first for "rigorous" testing to find vulnerabilities and create safeguards to contain risk.

Writing his first-ever article for Substack, Andrew Bailey said the risks around AI were "real and increasingly significant".

He said AI development should not be halted or prohibited - "on the contrary, the benefits are immense" - but added there must be a system for intervention and to establish boundaries in which AI operates.

The debate about the potential risks surrounding the rapid development of AI and what it means for humanity has intensified in recent weeks.

The bosses of leading AI firms such as Anthropic and OpenAI have called for development of the technology to slow down and for an internationally co-ordinated approach assessing risks and putting safeguards in place.

OpenAI recently announced that it would not release its latest AI model due to safety concerns .

The idea of a slowdown, however, has been rejected by the likes of President Donald Trump who has said the US is leading the AI race ahead of China, adding: "And, frankly, I want to keep it that way because whoever wins AI, wins."

But on Tuesday, after hosting a meeting with bosses from technology firms OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, SpaceX, Meta and Google, Trump said executives had signed a "morally binding" document that would serve as a "form of protection" from AI's potential risks.