The Government has warned on the risk 'terrorist groups trying to develop bioweapons' and 'societal unrest' caused by advances in artificial intelligence ahead of Rishi Sunak's key AI safety summit next week.
In a research paper circulated with summit attendees, the Government Office for Science explores a series of potentially catastrophic scenarios that could be brought about by enhanced capabilities of artificial intelligence if left unregulated over the coming decade.
The paper considers a 'Wild West' scenario in which "a big increase in misuse of AI causes societal unrest as many members of the public fall victim to organised crime."
"Severe misuse adds to a public mood that AI is enabling more harm than good."
Other risks identified by the report include:
- A surge in AI-based cyber-attacks on infrastructure and public services,
- A use of voice and facial cloning by malicious state actors for espionage, misinformation and political interference,
- Use of AI to assemble knowledge for chemical, biological and radiological weapons,
- The proliferation of online scams and child sexual abuse imagery,
- 'Data poisoning', in which the data used to train AI models is deliberately manipulated to lead to dangerous outcomes,
- AI systems actively seeking to increase their own influence and reduce human control.
The report, which used data supplied by AI firms and cites expert studies, warned: "By 2025, generative AI is more likely to amplify existing risks than create wholly new ones, but it will increase sharply the speed and scale of some threats.
"The difficulty of predicting technological advances creates significant potential for technological surprise; additional threats will almost certainly emerge that have not been anticipated.
"Risks to political systems and societies will increase in likelihood as the technology develops and adoption widens. Proliferation of synthetic media risks eroding democratic engagement and public trust in the institutions of government."
It comes as Rishi Sunak unveiled his plans to launch what he called the world's first 'AI safety institute' in the UK ahead of inviting world leaders to Bletchley Park next week for a summit on AI safety.
Sunak said the Institute will "carefully examine, evaluate, and test new types of AI…exploring all the risks, from social harms like bias and misinformation, through to the most extreme risks of all."
"However uncertain and unlikely these risks are, if they did manifest themselves, the consequences would be incredibly serious," the Prime Minister said.
"And when so many of the biggest developers of this technology themselves warn of these risks leaders have a responsibility to take them seriously, and to act."
