By:-Graeme Stewart, Head of Public Sector, Check Point
“Legislating for having an AI kill switch in place when things go wrong, which occasionally they will, should be seriously considered as a next step and one that will need to be written into UK law. Autonomous technology has the potential to turbocharge the economy but checks and balances need to be put in place, especially when you’re dealing with organisations like the NHS and other critical public services. This policy however raises much bigger questions, for example who owns ultimate responsibility for a kill switch? The tech provider, government, cyber regulator, or policymakers? We also need to hear detail about what role this function would provide, such as disabling automated workflows and putting them back into human control or quarantining a specific AI agent. It might make sense that this capability is rolled out across critical national infrastructure as a priority and then once the model is in place, expanded from there. Yes these rules can be written into code and commands, but such large-scale deployments will be an irresistible target to hackers. That’s why the UK private and public sector needs to ensure security levers are built into these programmes by design, rather than bolted on after an AI disaster takes place.”
