While the Labour conference saw ministers and activists jubilant over Andy Burnham’s takeover and a poll bounce following the change of leader, a number of senior figures were privately naming the power of AI as their primary concern, alongside cost-of-living pressures and a fragile economy.
A senior Labour government figure agreed that Burnham’s government was taking AI safety warnings more seriously following security services' warnings. However, another expressed concern that the government was falling behind the public in dealing with AI safety worries and needed to catch up fast.
Alarm bells have continued to ring as Westminster fully woke up to the warnings. A cabinet minister with a technology-unrelated brief stated that dangerous, out-of-control AI was the issue keeping them up at night while fretting about the threat to humanity.