Oliver Dowden said the world must “protect ourselves” against the risks posed by artificial intelligence as he hailed the potential benefits of the “game-changing technology”. 

The Deputy Prime Minister said he believed AI “represents one of the most exciting technological advances of my lifetime” but stressed the need for it to be carefully regulated.

He made the comments as the Government welcomes world leaders and tech experts to Bletchley Park this morning for the start of a “historic” two-day AI safety summit. 

Mr Dowden told Times Radio: “What we are doing here at this summit is looking at those high end risks and opportunities, so bringing together the frontier AI companies, all of them together for the first time with world leaders and with our analysis of the national security implications to understand what the risks are and how we can go about mitigating them. 

“But also it is really important in all of this, I genuinely think AI represents one of the most exciting technological advances of my lifetime, game-changing in so many ways, but this is also about making sure that we get the future framework right to it to protect ourselves against risks.”

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