Microsoft President calls for greater safety oversight, says ‘even milk has safety inspection’

Recently, the entire technology industry expressed concerns about artificial intelligence (AI) evolving at a rapid pace, raising questions about safety regulations and potential risks of autonomous AI systems. Amid the ongoing debate and call for stricter guardrails, Brad Smith, president of Microsoft, stated that AI is less regulated than milk and washing machines.

In an interaction with BCC, cited by The Guardian, Smith said, “Right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI. Every carton of milk that you see in the grocery store is subject to safety rules and inspection.”

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He also stated that if any AI system goes rogue, then companies should face stricter safety regulations and be legally responsible if it causes harm. Several AI giants, including Anthropic, Google DeepMind, OpenAI, and others, have been raising similar concerns.

Smith warned that AI could be both a powerful tool and a dangerous weapon, calling for urgent regulatory action. He also called for “emergency brakes” or “kill switches” to control rogue AI. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella also previously called for AI models to have an “emergency brake”.

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“We can’t treat super intelligence as a set of nested black boxes and simply accept or reject its recommendations, answers, and actions,” Nadella said. “We must build contained systems whose behaviour we can observe, limits we can test, and actions we can always contain.”

Several AI companies are putting AI safety as a greater priority. Recently, OpenAI announced it would pause the development of its next AI model to address safety concerns and evaluate potential risks before proceeding with further development. Meanwhile, Anthropic has a dedicated AI safety research team focused on studying potential risks, evaluating model capabilities, and developing safeguards to ensure its AI systems are safe and reliable.