Davey Closes Conference Demanding a Global Treaty Against Superintelligent AI
The Liberal Democrat leader closes his conference today with the boldest tech policy any British party has offered: a nuclear-style non-proliferation treaty to pause superintelligent AI development, policed by a new International AI Safety Agency — and a direct attack on the Prime Minister’s new Washington pact, which “doesn’t come close to meeting the scale of the threat” and “only risks making us more dependent on a Trump administration in the pocket of the tech bros”.
The collision of the two AI announcements — Mr Burnham’s partnership and Mr Davey’s treaty, landing the same morning — maps Britain’s actual choice more clearly than either intends: integrate with American AI power and shape it from inside, or champion the international governance the labs themselves keep requesting between capability launches. Mr Davey’s framing borrows deliberately from arms control because the analogy does real work — verification, thresholds, agency inspections — and lands days after the industry’s own chiefs called for a slowdown, giving a third-party conference speech unusual expert cover. The “tech bros” line is the retail version. Neither vision is costed; only one requires Washington’s signature. Watch whether Labour’s conference answers with governance language of its own — the gap is now visible.