UK MP introduces a bill to ban superintelligent AI

Labour MP Alex Sobel introduced a bill in the House of Commons to prohibit the development, deployment and operation of artificial superintelligence in the United Kingdom, using the Ten Minute Rule procedure that lets a backbencher make a short case for a bill before the House votes on whether to allow its introduction. Reporting described it as the first such bill brought before a G7 parliament. The text, drafted with the campaign group ControlAI, would also give government new powers to monitor and restrict systems judged to be precursors to superintelligence, and would commit the UK to pursuing an international agreement banning the technology.

ControlAI said the bill had the backing of more than 100 MPs and peers from across parties by the time it was introduced, and cited Geoffrey Hinton’s public support for its aim. It closely mirrors the Ban Artificial Superintelligence Act that Senator Bernie Sanders and Representative Greg Casar introduced in the US Congress days earlier; ControlAI’s founder said the group had consulted on both bills, arguing that a ban confined to one country could not by itself solve what it considers an international problem.

Ten Minute Rule bills rarely progress beyond a first reading without government support, and the government had not endorsed the measure. The bill’s near-term significance was less as a candidate for law than as a marker of cross-party sentiment — a device MPs have historically used to force a public position from the government rather than to legislate directly.