A former high-level British diplomat from Salford has called for greater control of AI.
Lord Simon McDonald of Salford, who served as an ambassador to Tel Aviv from Germany and as a Permanent Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office, said: “It is absolutely on the agenda; it is one of those areas that needs regulation, and the only plausible regulation will be international and widely agreed.
“I think it is in Britain’s interest to be part of that core group that is deciding that global regulation.”
Speaking after at lecture at Salford University, Lord McDonald said: “We’re at the start of this; I do not know what it looks like, but there will be some kind of constraints and some basic protections that AI must respect human life.”
Lord McDonald was born and educated in Salford, taking his seat in the House of Lords as Lord McDonald of Salford in February 2021.
His comments come after weeks of debate on the impact of AI, following comments from tech experts on the risks, including an essay named “We Must Pace the Frontier” published by Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who, whilst praising the possibilities with AI, commented in the essay, “We must slow the pace at which we improve the capabilities of AI models.”
Data released by IBM said that AI attacks are up 56% globally in the last year (From July 2026) and that Deep-fake impersonation was the most prevalent type of attack by Artificial Intelligence at 45%.
Lord McDonald is releasing a new book on the UK’s relationship with the United States in 2027.
