Artificial intelligence could represent the most substantial policy challenge ever faced by the UK and urgent action is needed to avoid falling behind rival powers such as the US, according to a report co-authored by Tony Blair and William Hague. The former prime minister and the former Conservative party leader, who co-wrote the foreword to the report, said society was about to be "radically reshaped" by the technology, resulting in a "fundamental change in how we plan for the future". The report warns that the state is poorly prepared for the changes that AI could unleash. "AI's unpredictable development, the rate of change and its ever increasing power means its arrival could present the most substantial policy challenge ever faced, for which the state's existing approaches and channels are poorly configured," says the report, titled A New National Purpose: AI promises a world-leading future of Britain. AI has shot up the political agenda in the UK and other countries after breakthroughs in generative AI, which can produce convincing text, images and even voice on command.

Rishi Sunak will set out his views on artificial intelligence (AI) next week to an audience of technology industry insiders during a keynote speech at London Tech Week. Twenty-four hours later, the Labour leader Keir Starmer will do the same. The prime minister and Starmer have a habit of speaking at the same venue within a day of each other – they did so at the beginning of the year when setting out their competing visions for the country from the same room at the Olympic Park in east London. The fact they are doing so again but on the far more technical and detailed question of AI shows how quickly the issue has rocketed up the political agenda. "We have been working on AI policy for a long time," said one government official.

Since the tech industry began its love affair with machine learning about a decade ago, US lawmakers have chattered about the potential need for regulation to rein in the technology. No proposal to regulate corporate AI projects has got close to becoming law--but OpenAI's release of ChatGPT in November has convinced some senators there is now an urgent need to do something to protect people's rights against the potential harms of AI technology. At a hearing held by a Senate Judiciary subcommittee yesterday attendees heard a terrifying laundry list of ways artificial intelligence can harm people and democracy. Senators from both parties spoke in support of the idea of creating a new arm of the US government dedicated to regulating AI. The idea even got the backing of Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI.