UK Cyber Bill Targets AI Users, Not the Vendors Building It
Arthur T Knackerbracket writes:
The UK government has rejected proposals from members of the the(sic) House of Lords to bring AI vendors within the scope of the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill.
Cybersecurity minister Baroness Lloyd of Effra argued that regulating AI vendors and frontier model developers through the bill would not prevent hostile actors from misusing their products.
Addressing the Grand Committee on Tuesday, she said: "Bringing providers of AI services, those companies which are at the cutting edge of frontier AI development and their products, into the scope... would not address the harms that can be posed by some AI products and services, or specifically, it would not prevent their misuse by hostile actors."
The minister said the UK was instead taking "firm action" to secure AI through other channels. These include supporting the AI Security Institute (AISI), which works with vendors to test the security of models before their release.
Lloyd also pointed to the voluntary AI Cyber Security Code of Practice, which informed the first global AI cybersecurity standard, ETSI EN 304 223.
"This demonstrates our global leadership and commitment to shaping international technical standards which go wider than some of the issues raised in this bill," she claimed.
Members of the House of Lords - the upper house in UK parliament - offered numerous arguments for bringing AI within the bill's scope.
They cited reports of rogue agentic behavior involving Anthropic and OpenAI, as well as Bill Gates' concerns that commercial incentives are pushing AI development forward without adequate safeguards.
Lawmakers also questioned whether companies unable to prevent their agents from misbehaving should be trusted to follow voluntary ethical guidelines that they can rewrite at will.
"Have we not learned from countless experiences before in online safety, privacy, and in AI itself that allowing tech companies to set and mark their own homework endangers the public and our national security?" asked Baroness Kidron, a Crossbench peer and campaigner for online safety and digital rights.
Similarly, Lord Tarassenko, a Crossbench peer and veteran AI researcher, pointed to the recent open letter penned by OpenAI warning that there will soon come a time when AI-orchestrated cyberattacks will become too prevalent to handle.
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