alecmUK House of Lords seeks ban on Swiss Army Knives that “…could be used to cut people”
“We are not against pen knives in principle”, says peer, “…but we want manufacturers to take steps to prevent them being used to cause harm.”
https://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/stories/2026-03-17/baroness-kidron-interview
https://twitter.com/opensauceAI/status/2034903083579580460?s=20
Quote:
To “create” a chatbot or model that can “encourage” crime would be an offense punishable by 5 years imprisonment under amendments voted through (203 to 148) by the UK House of Lords.
This follows recommendations from the Center for Countering Digital Hate.
The imprecision in these proposals is appalling. Chatbots and language models can be goaded into saying bad things. When they’re used by billions of people, even the most cautious developers cannot exclude that risk. Criminalizing their development based on whether they generate any proscribed content (per sec. 1) is a garish attack on fundamental research and consumer technology.
Governments can uplevel AI safety in many ways, some of which are represented in this bill. But this kind of theatrical overreach is setting back meaningful reform.
Ra