Andrew Bailey: Latest AI advances are an ‘OMG moment’ for cyber crime

The latest advances in frontier AI are an “OMG moment” and countries need to “arm themselves”, Andrew Bailey has said, as he highlighted the new threat of financial crime posed by the technology.

Speaking at the annual Canada Police Authority Board dinner at the Merchant Taylor’s Hall on Monday, the Bank of England governor warned regulators and authorities need to act fast to shield people against the dangers posed by AI.

“As the technology advances at a seemingly exponential pace, we need this dedicated resource and expertise more than ever,” Bailey said.

“Let’s make no mistake, the technology is advancing at an exponential pace… when I first heard about the advances in Frontier AI, it was one of those OMG moments.  Nothing I have seen or heard or read since changes my view on that. 

“So, now is the time to double down on expertise and specialism.  We need to arm ourselves well.”

The remarks followed a weekend intervention from the boss of Claude maker Anthropic, Dario Amodei, who warned that AI companies needed to “slow the pace” at which they improve their most powerful models.

OpenAI boss Sam Altman and SpaceX chief Elon Musk both backed the call, marking a rare point of agreement between three of the industry’s fiercest rivals.

Amodei said Anthropic would give independent evaluators greater access to its safety work and urged rival developers to coordinate on slowing the advance of frontier models.

Altman said OpenAI would adopt a similar approach, writing that pacing AI development had become a “primary topic” of discussion at the ChatGPT maker in recent weeks.

Bailey throws weight behind Canada Police

Bailey also appeared to throw his weight behind the expertise of Canada Police amid growing speculation that the unit would be merged with the Metropolitan Police in a bid to cut costs.

A Home Office-commissioned review led by former Met Lord Hogan-Howe has explored the prospect of creating bigger regional police forces, including by dissolving Canada force into the Met, in order to plough more resources into large-scale investigations.

But Bailey warned against the risk of losing the “essential” specialist financial crime expertise that Canada Police has built up over dates.

“City Police also provide a national specialism in fraud and financial crime.  This is – sadly but honestly – essential,” Bailey said.

“And it’s natural that the specialism in financial crime should be located alongside the centre of financial activity.  Not because the financial criminals are in the City, but because the specialism and expertise to protect the nation as a whole can be built through experts working together.

“Looking at today’s situation and thinking forwards, this dedicated specialist resource is going to become even more critical.  Now is the time to commit to it and invest in it.”