An AI “kill switch” has also been floated by an Anthropic co-founder as a way to shut down AI software that becomes too dangerous.
Jack Clark, one of seven founders of the AI company, told the BBC “most labs have different ways of being able to pull the plug”, including Anthropic, but said MPs may need to enforce having one.
Asked about the idea of a “kill switch”, Reynolds told the BBC: “I don’t think that’s a particularly helpful way to think about how we manage the risks – I’m not really sure what that would mean in practice.”
He warned that overregulation could risk the UK losing access to models developed abroad, which he argued would make the country “less safe”.
The proposal to create a legal mechanism for the UK to switch off an AI model in an emergency was brought to Parliament by Lords and MPs. But the Cabinet Office said the UK “cannot simply turn AI off”.
“Blocking access to models in the UK would not prevent them being developed or misused elsewhere”, a spokesperson told BBC News.
Meanwhile, the US President Donald Trump has dismissed the idea of AI taking over the world, saying on social media that AI “destroying Humanity, and all other things bad, is a HOAX”.
In a more recent Truth post, Trump said the AI Hoax was “being perpetrated by the Radical Left Dumocrats” and likened it to what he describes as the “Global Warming Scam” by the left.
The president, who frequently shares AI content on his platform Truth Social, has lauded the benefits of AI and has been public about his desire for the US to win “the AI race”.
