A high-level British diplomat from Salford has spoken out for greater control of AI.
Lord Simon McDonald of Salford served as an ambassador to Tel Aviv from Germany and as a Parliament Under-Secretary in the Foreign Office. He was raised in Salford before going to Cambridge University, and was ultimately named as a Lord in 2021.
Following a talk at the University of Salford, Lord McDonald spoke exclusively to Salford Now on the need for international collaboration on AI.
He 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.”
When asked what any controls may look like, 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’s 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.
