Britain can become the global centre of artificial intelligence (AI) safety - Michelle Donelan

As the UK’s first Technology Secretary, I have implemented bold new policies that have put the UK on track to become a true science and technology superpower by 2030. AI will be crucial to that mission.

Just a few months ago, you will have seen that an AI model was used to discover a new drug for liver cancer in the space of just 30 days. Not long after, companies unveiled AI models that could predict the weather with the same degree of accuracy as the whole of our existing weather monitoring systems – and they did it 10,000 times faster. The speed of progress is like nothing we have ever seen before.

In the space of a single human lifetime, humanity progressed from the horse and cart to launching a man into space.

We are seeing a comparable transformation in the field of AI, occurring in just under a decade. Five years ago, the most advanced AI could barely write coherent sentences. Today, they can instantly generate stunning art, they can ace the bar exam and use tools as we ourselves do.

I have announced new multi-million-pound funding for cancer research projects – including one at King’s College London - which is using AI to read lung scans and more accurately predict lung cancer’s resistance to treatment. If we want to take the lead on this transformative technology, however, we have to first take the lead on making it safe and reliable.

There is a reason we happily send ourselves 30,000 feet in the air with two people we have never met at the controls.

It is because flying has been made extraordinarily safe by years of engineering advances, regulation and standards that have given consumers the confidence they need to fly around the world without a second thought.

Without those guardrails, there would be no airline industry – and the same is true of AI. Safety is going to be the determining factor in the race to become the world’s leader in AI innovation – and we here in the UK are not waiting for the starting gun.

We don’t want AI to be successful despite our regulations, we want it to be successful because of our regulations. But the reality is that we don’t have years to play with.

The stakes are too high and the technology is moving too fast for us to learn from mistakes after they happen.

When it comes to AI, we need to take action to make AI safe before something goes wrong, not after. And what’s even more challenging is that action needs to be able to keep pace with any change that comes around the corner. We need to be prepared to predict, understand and mitigate the things that no one has even thought of yet.

My vision is for the UK to be the global centre of AI safety. A place where companies at the frontier know that the guardrails are in place for them to seize all the benefits of AI while mitigating the risks.

An adapted version of a speech by Michelle Donelan, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, at technology conference CogX.