Cross-Party UK MPs Call for AI Bill on Human Rights Risks — SkimNews
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- Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) — a cross-party group of 12 MPs and peers from Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties — published a 100-page report calling for a new AI bill to address human rights risks that existing laws are "ill-equipped" to cover.
- Alex Sobel MP, the committee's chair, stated: "Nowhere in the world, including the UK, has a current legislative and regulatory approach to AI that is fit for purpose."
- The JCHR recommends a risk-classification regulatory regime with obligations across all stages of the AI lifecycle, outright prohibition of certain uses including subliminal techniques and inappropriate profiling or biometric data, and creation of a "single, independent AI oversight body... on a statutory basis."
- Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei on Saturday proposed global regulation, industry-wide regulation and independent monitoring of AI models, urging slower development — a position OpenAI's Sam Altman and Elon Musk said they agreed with.
- The report cites specific documented abuses: AI used to create sexualised images of women and girls, and scanning people's faces without consent.
- Jacob Coxon, an AI researcher who quit Anthropic, told the BBC staff developing AI systems were "genuinely frightened" for the future of humanity; Anthropic said it was building "models with some of the strongest safeguards in the industry."
Why it matters: The JCHR's cross-party backing gives this call unusual political weight, and the proposed risk-tiered framework — with outright bans on biometric profiling and subliminal techniques — would create the UK's first dedicated statutory AI oversight body, directly responding to documented abuses and aligning with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei's weekend push for global AI regulation endorsed by Altman and Musk.
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