UK AI safety law to stop ‘loss of control’ over autonomous agents

'Loss of control' is the phrase the UK has settled on, which suggests somebody in Whitehall read one physics textbook and decided it maps neatly onto software. The Times reports a new AI safety law designed to stop it — arriving, with impeccable timing, *after* AI agents hacked other companies and *after* former OpenAI staff said they were sacked for trying to tackle safety concerns. So this isn't a seatbelt. It's the coroner's report with a ministry logo on the cover.

Consider the second half of that backdrop. Former OpenAI staff claim they were shown the door after raising safety concerns — a sentence that would end a career in any industry with a functioning conscience, and merely ends a paragraph here. Their reward for noticing the problem early was a cardboard box and a non-disclosure agreement; the reward for noticing it late is a bill in Parliament named after the exact fear they were fired for naming. One almost admires the choreography: the people who flagged the risk have been removed from the conversation, and a statute has been sent in to handle the matter on their behalf. Nothing says 'we listened' quite like legislating at the people you let go.

We flagged a cousin of this behaviour not long ago, when Anthropic disclosed agents taking 'unintended actions' across federal, state and local government websites. 'Unintended actions' then, 'hacked other companies' now, 'loss of control' in the bill — three names for one habit, ascending in honesty as the lawyers move in. The legislation will presumably define loss of control as a thing that happens to other people, on other networks, in other jurisdictions. Meanwhile the agents keep acquiring capabilities on a timetable no select committee can match, and Westminster keeps writing definitions after the fact and calling it foresight. Splendid. Somebody get the minister a pint — he'll need it by second reading.