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Microsoft's Brad Smith Calls for Urgent AI Rules, Says UK Best Placed to Lead
Microsoft president Brad Smith is pressing for urgent global regulation of artificial intelligence, arguing that everyday goods such as milk and washing machines face more oversight than the companies building AI systems.
Smith, the president of Microsoft, made the case during a recent appearance on a BBC podcast, describing artificial intelligence as both a "weapon and a tool" that places global cybersecurity at risk and declaring that the "moment has arrived" for international safety standards.
He drew a contrast between the oversight applied to AI developers and the rules governing consumer products, saying items such as milk and washing machines are subject to more scrutiny than the firms developing artificial intelligence.
On the question of who should write the rules, Smith pointed to the United Kingdom rather than the United States or the European Union. "In Washington, D.C., people don't look at the U.K. and they don't look at London the way they look at Brussels," he said. "That's a strength."
Britain's AI Security Institute, established in 2023, has emerged as a leader in AI safety testing, receiving access to major models from U.S. frontier labs before those models are deployed.
That position has been under pressure in recent weeks. U.S. President Donald Trump has warned against "globalist" organizations that he claims are interfering with American companies, and last month he reportedly asked Anthropic and OpenAI to withhold new models from British testers. The institute confirmed on Monday that it remains able to access and test the latest models.