Andy Burnham has acknowledged that artificial intelligence poses risks to UK national security, responding to Commons questions after an Anthropic safety researcher warned the technology could pose an existential threat to humanity. The exchange came after reports that Anthropic had withheld its newest AI model from the UK's AI Safety Institute, prompting concern from MPs about whether Britain has adequate oversight of frontier AI development being carried out by private companies.

Anthropic researcher Evan Hubinger said he believed there was a greater than 10 per cent chance of AI causing a species-ending event within a decade, adding the firm has "no plan to solve alignment for superintelligence". His comments followed the resignation of fellow Anthropic researcher Jacob Coxon, who accused AI labs including Anthropic and OpenAI of "gambling with our lives" through competitive pressure to build self-improving systems. Former minister Darren Jones has called for a new multi-national treaty to regulate superintelligence development, while the Cabinet Office insisted the UK's AI Security Institute continues to work closely with industry, including having tested OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra before release.