Microsoft’s Brad Smith calls for ‘real and effective’ AI safety standards

DUBLIN:

Microsoft president Brad Smith warned Tuesday that industry and governments must “act with urgency” to create “real and effective safety standards” to contain the risks linked to artificial intelligence.

“We’re going to need for AI what we have for everything else in life… we need real and effective safety standards, and we need the public to have confidence in them,” Smith told a group of reporters on the eve of an international AI summit in Dublin.

Concerns about AI safety have soared in recent months after models developed by OpenAI and Anthropic were involved in security incidents during testing, piling on pressure to regulate the technology.

“We’ve reached a point where we obviously need companies in the industry to step up and do more to address AI safety issues,” Smith said. “I think we reached a time when we’re going to need governments to do more as well.”

The Microsoft boss outlined the company’s proposals to strengthen safety across the sector, starting with a requirement that AI agents be equipped with “safety brakes” that users could activate in the event of an incident.

“The notion, especially for any AI that’s running on critical infrastructure or some other kind of automated system, they have the ability to turn off or slow down,” he explained.

Smith also called for AI providers to face mandatory incident-reporting obligations.

“If you are a business and you suffer a security breach that leads to the loss of consumer data, you have to let consumers know,” he said. “The same logic should apply to people harmed by an AI agent,” with a legal obligation to inform those affected.

The Microsoft president further advocated stronger testing and evaluation of AI models before they are released, to ensure they are safe.

“We need to act with urgency,” he warned.

Smith is the latest in a series of leading industry figures to highlight the need for increased vigilance around AI technology. Among them, Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, has pledged to slow development unilaterally if necessary.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on Tuesday said AI company leaders must take responsibility for ensuring the technology is developed safely.

Speaking in Paris, Huang said: “The full potential of AI can only be realised if we advance the capabilities of AI and the safety and security of AI at the same time.”

“These are not conflicting goals. These are, in fact, the same goal.”

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