UK Foreign Secretary Warns World Cannot Wait for 'AI Hiroshima' Before Regulating AI
Yvette Cooper emphasized that AI will be the primary foreign policy issue over the next two years, urging leading AI nations to reach a consensus on safety principles before a crisis occurs.
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Artificial intelligence could pose a Hiroshima-level threat to humanity if countries fail to build consensus on safety principles and standards today, warns the United Kingdom’s Foreign Secretary, Yvette Cooper.
In an op-ed published by the think tank Chatham House, Cooper wrote, “I believe we have to put our convening power to work to tackle the profound new global risks posed by AI,” adding that optimal opportunities can only be realized if “there is sufficient international consensus on how to approach safety and guardrails.”
After World War II, the UK helped lead the world toward nuclear safety rules, but not before Hiroshima revealed the technology’s destructive power. Cooper argued that a similar pattern must not repeat with AI. “On nuclear, international agreement came only after the world saw the terrifying power of the new technology at Hiroshima – and asked what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands,” she wrote. “We cannot afford to wait for an AI equivalent of Hiroshima before we act.”
In a separate interview with The Guardian, Cooper said, “Across the world, people are feeling the same thing – there is amazing potential here, but there is also huge risk. We are already in a world where we have malign actors who will use technology against us – whether that be hybrid threats, whether that be state-backed criminal groups or other kinds of organizations, or extremists and terror groups.”
While she’s witnessed AI and robotics perform remarkable feats in life-saving healthcare, they’re also being used to advance the future of warfare, crime, and social cohesion. In her view, it’s the technology’s dual nature that makes international coordination urgent rather than optional. The UK is doing its bit by becoming the first country to introduce laws against AI tools used to generate sexualised images of children in 2025.
“I think AI is going to end up being the dominant foreign policy issue that we deal with over the next two years,” she added.
“We need to draw on that leadership capability now, pulling countries together,” she said, urging the US, China, and other leading AI nations to build consensus on safety principles before a crisis strikes.
