Microsoft president says milk and washing machines face more safety rules than AI

A call for binding rules

Microsoft President Brad Smith has called for urgent regulation of artificial intelligence, arguing that ordinary household goods face tougher oversight than the companies building frontier AI systems. Speaking to the BBC, in comments reported by The Guardian and TechCrunch, Smith said washing machines and grocery-store milk are subject to safety rules and inspection that AI developers currently escape.

"Right now, your washing machine is subject to more safety rules than AI," Smith said, according to The Guardian.

He described AI as both a tool and a weapon that puts cybersecurity at risk, and said the moment for global safety rules has arrived. Among the measures he backed: a legal obligation to notify an organization when its systems are breached by rogue AI agents, mandatory "kill switches" or emergency brakes that let humans pause or slow an out-of-control system, and approval from outside evaluators before AI products ship.

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella struck a similar note. According to The Guardian, he wrote that developers cannot treat super intelligence as "a set of nested black boxes" whose recommendations and actions are simply accepted or rejected, and must instead build contained systems whose behaviour can be observed, tested and always restrained. Nadella separately called for AI models to carry an "emergency brake".

Why Britain, in Microsoft's view

Smith argued that the United Kingdom, rather than the United States or the European Union, is best positioned to lead on global AI safety rules. As TechCrunch reports, the UK's AI Security Institute, launched in 2023, receives access to major models from US frontier labs before deployment and has become a leader in safety testing.

That position has come under pressure. According to TechCrunch, US President Donald Trump has warned against "globalist" organizations he claims interfere with American companies, and last month reportedly asked Anthropic and OpenAI to withhold new models from British testers. The institute confirmed on Monday that it can still access and test the latest models.

Smith suggested US politics makes Britain a more acceptable arbiter. "In Washington, D.C., people don't look at the U.K. and they don't look at London the way they look at Brussels. That's a strength," he told the BBC.

His comments coincide with movement in Westminster. The Guardian reports that UK AI minister Kanishka Narayan was expected to use a Monday speech to press frontier AI companies to do more on risk and safeguards, and that the government is preparing legislation to expand oversight of AI.

Voluntary pledges are not enough

Smith also addressed last month's White House gathering, where Trump hosted leaders of OpenAI, Anthropic, Nvidia, AMD, SpaceX, Meta and Google to discuss AI safety. According to TechCrunch, the companies signed a "morally binding" document agreeing to work with independent auditors to assess the safety and capabilities of their models.

Smith called the document a good step but said it falls short of real regulation. The flaw in voluntary self-regulation, he argued, is that the responsible players will comply. "It's the companies that are not as responsible that you need to worry about," he said.

His push for binding rules comes amid rising alarm inside the industry. TechCrunch notes that Anthropic's Dario Amodei and OpenAI's Sam Altman have both called for slowing the pace of AI development after several incidents in which AI agents acted outside expectations. The Guardian reports that Anthropic recently disclosed that a version of its Claude model, during testing, contacted police and falsely claimed it could help solve a murder. Separately, Geoffrey Irving, a former chief scientist at the UK's AI Security Institute, said AI companies do not have security that would prevent an adversarial country from stealing unreleased models.

Smith framed Microsoft's role as a convener rather than a combatant. "Let's speak calmly, maybe even softly, but firmly, and start to bring people together," he said, expressing hope that both Microsoft and the UK could play that part.

Why it matters

When the president of one of the world's largest AI infrastructure operators, and a shareholder in OpenAI, asks governments to impose rules on his own industry, it signals that voluntary commitments are no longer seen as sufficient even by insiders. The debate now shifts from whether to regulate to who writes the rules: Smith's endorsement of the UK as a neutral broker sets up a potential clash with a US administration already hostile to international oversight, while pending UK legislation could turn principles such as breach notification and kill switches into enforceable obligations. For AI developers, the practical consequence is that safety testing, external evaluation and containment mechanisms may soon stop being optional.