Andrew Bailey: Regulating AI not the right place to start

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

Avoiding a closed loop in which self-learning systems govern themselves is crucial.

Andrew Bailey, Governor of the Bank of England, has stated that regulating artificial intelligence (AI) is not the right place to start but instead called for 'rigorous' testing to find vulnerabilities and create safeguards to contain risk.

The risks around AI are 'real and increasingly significant', according to Bailey. He emphasized that AI development should not be halted or prohibited, but rather there must be a system for intervention and boundaries in which AI operates.

Debate about the potential risks surrounding AI 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 put safeguards in place.

OpenAI recently announced that it would not release its latest AI model due to safety concerns, while President Donald Trump said executives had signed a 'morally binding' document that would serve as a form of protection from AI's potential risks.

The idea of a slowdown has been rejected by the likes of President Trump who wants to keep the US leading in the AI race ahead of China. However, 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.

Chinese AI tool told researchers how to make bioweapons. OpenAI scraps rollout of new model over safety concerns. Under the agreement, the companies are responsible for ensuring the safety of their own technology.

In the UK, Bailey said 'important work' was underway in testing AI - the UK has set up the AI Security Institute - which should help form part of a set of standards. But the pace of progress must accelerate, he added. He emphasized that testing is necessary to identify failures and models will behave unexpectedly.

Testing should not be seen as an alternative to future regulation - over time a more formal regulatory framework might emerge. Bailey specifically highlighted so-called frontier AI - highly-advanced, self-learning systems which risk becoming 'a closed loop in which the model progressively governs itself'.

He stated that regulating AI is not the right place to start but instead called for rigorous testing to find vulnerabilities and create safeguards to contain risk.

Bailey said that testing should not be seen as an alternative to future regulation - over time a more formal regulatory framework might emerge. 'But regulation is not, in my view, the right place to start.'

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