Artificial Intelligence: National Security Implications

Lord Clement-Jones Excerpts

Tuesday 16th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The noble Lord raises very important points, including the fact that Mythos and Fable are unavailable worldwide, including in the US. He rightly stresses the importance of the AI Security Institute—its establishment, its ongoing support and funding by this Government, and the fact that it was able to test both Mythos 5 and Fable 5. We are in touch with the US Government and are monitoring the situation closely.

[Lord Clement-Jones (LD)]

My Lords, the Minister has mentioned the AI Security Institute. It identified ways to circumvent the safety guardrails of Fable 5 and Mythos before their public launch, including vulnerabilities that could allow the extraction of instructions for producing dangerous substances, yet the model was released by Anthropic regardless. Will the Minister now accept that voluntary co-operation with safety institutes is wholly insufficient at this level of capability and bring forward legislation giving the AI Security Institute the statutory power, where necessary, to delay or prevent the launch of dangerous frontier AI models in the UK?

[Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)]

The AI Security Institute did test Mythos and Fable before they were launched. In light of the risks that they potentially posed—Mythos in particular—we also gave advice to our companies. We worked carefully with the National Cyber Security Centre to provide advice to companies and regulators on what needed to be done because, generally speaking, what we find with these potential new capabilities is that many of the basic mitigants that you need to take will inhibit the effectiveness of these new models. In respect of regulation, as I mentioned a moment ago, we continue to support the effectiveness of sector-based regulators regulating AI risks as they approach their sectors. They are best placed to know what those risks are and what the mitigants will be.