Rishi Sunak would be happy to let a robot look after his grandmother or teach his children, he has confirmed.
Ahead of a meeting with Joe Biden, during which the prime minister will pitch a “grand plan” to place the UK at the heart of Artificial Intelligence (AI) regulation, Mr Sunak said advances in technology have “improved our lives throughout time and will continue to do so”.
He told ITV News: “Our job in government is to make sure that we can get those benefits, whether it is in drug discovery or other areas, but make sure that at the same time we are protecting ourselves against the clear risks that the technology poses.”
And asked whether he would be “comfortable with a robot looking after your grandmother or teaching your children”, Mr Sunak replied: “Yeah.”
“I think technology throughout time has improved our lives and we’ll continue to do so,” he added.
It comes after technology minister Paul Scully warned AI could create a “dystopia” and a government advisor said it could become powerful enough to “kill many humans” in only two years’ time.
Sunak’s advisor on AI Matt Clifford said even the short-term risks were “pretty scary”, with AI having the potential to create cyber and biological weapons that could inflict many deaths.
Mr Sunak is in the US for a meeting with President Biden, with the pair expected to discuss AI regulation, America’s Inflation Reduction Act, support for Ukraine and protecting the Good Friday agreement.
He also told TalkTV that while in America he was “announcing £14 billion of new investment. That’s great for the country, but also how do we evolve our economic relationship so that we can protect our citizens against the new threats that we face when it comes to the economy?”
He said that as chancellor he had crafted scholarships for people from disadvantaged backgrounds to study and learn about AI.
“I saw that this was coming and I want to make sure that we are well placed as a country to both benefit from it, but also to be protected against its harms.”
