Milk and washing machines face stricter safety rules than artificial intelligence, Microsoft president Brad Smith has said, as he urged governments to introduce binding global standards for the technology.
Smith told the BBC’s Big Boss Interview that AI is both a “tool and a weapon” and needs regulation urgently.
“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,” he said.
His position puts him at odds with US President Donald Trump, who has argued the sector should regulate itself so that American firms do not lose ground to Chinese rivals.
Smith set out several measures he believes should be written into law: an obligation to inform a “victim” when a rogue AI agent breaches their system, a requirement for companies to file “incident reports”, and a framework for deciding when outside evaluators must approve a product before release. He also said firms need “emergency brakes” – commonly known in the industry as kill switches – to pause or slow AI that escapes control in some way.
Independent government evaluators, he added, should vet new AI technology.
“We know how to do this for other products,” Smith said. “We should build on that knowledge and think about how to apply it to AI.”
Calls for laws and rules to govern AI have grown after experts in the sector said they believed the technology is a threat to humanity. The bosses of US AI giants including Anthropic, OpenAI and Google DeepMind have backed the idea of a slowdown in AI development, a position Trump has pushed against.
Smith said the UK is best placed to drive these global rules forward, pointing to its AI Security Institute, which was launched under former prime minister Rishi Sunak as the AI Safety Institute.
“In the world of technology, in the tech sector, most people that I know would say, if you ask them, name the country that is the leader in having this technical capability, they would say, it’s very simple. It’s the United Kingdom. They are the best,” he said.
Trump has repeatedly said that “whoever wins AI, wins”, and believes the US should be going full-steam ahead on the technology. Smith, however, does not think the US government would oppose UK-led AI regulation as strongly as those comments suggest, arguing Washington would be more accepting of British standards than of European Union ones.
“In Washington DC, people don’t look at the UK and they don’t look at London the way they look at Brussels – that’s a strength,” he said.
Warning of the risks involved, he said: “When you look at AI agents that have escaped human control, when you look at models that are so powerful that they’re putting the world’s cybersecurity at risk. I would say: The moment has arrived. Let’s speak calmly, maybe even softly, but firmly, and start to bring people together. I hope that’s the role we can play as a company. I hope that’s the role the UK can play as a country.”
At the end of last month, Trump hosted the leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, SpaceX, Meta and Google at the White House, where the executives signed a “morally binding” document. The companies agreed to work with “independent auditors” to assess whether their AI systems are working as intended and to make sure they do not “hack or access technical systems in unintended ways”.
Smith said he applauds the statement and that Microsoft is “happy to sign it”.
“It’s a good step, it’s a necessary step… But I don’t think it’s sufficient any longer,” he said.
The challenge for any self-regulatory regime, he added, is that “the good companies will do what you want”.
“It’s the companies that are not as responsible that you need to worry about,” he said.
The interview was conducted by BBC business reporter Mitchell Labiak.
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