OpenAI and Anthropic Urge Binding AI Safety Rules at UK Parliament Hearing

What happened

On Tuesday, October 13, 2026, the UK House of Commons Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee held an evidence session on AI safety. According to WIRED, representatives of four frontier AI companies, four former staff members turned whistleblowers, and senior British civil servants gave testimony.

Anthropic's head of Europe, Liam Booth-Smith, was asked whether AI safety needs a statutory framework and said the company has consistently believed there should be binding rules, and that voluntary commitments are not enough.

The rules should be binding.

— Liam Booth-Smith, Anthropic's head of Europe (UK parliamentary hearing, via WIRED)

OpenAI vice president Tom Duff Gordon took a more cautious but supportive stance: he backed a statutory framework and an international convention, saying mandatory elements should start with incident reporting, because resting all of frontier risk on voluntary commitments is not a good long-term plan.

Their rivals would not follow. Asked directly whether he supported a statutory framework, Google DeepMind's Owen Larter answered: "Focus on the standards is what we would be doing." Meta's Rob Sherman pointed to Britain's existing regulators, telling MPs they were "not writing on a blank page."

Committee chair Liam Byrne told WIRED after the hearing that its purpose was "to light up the wide differences in opinions between some of the wealthiest firms on Earth" and to show "that you couldn't rely on voluntary self-regulation."

On the same day, MI5 Director General Ken McCallum used his annual threat update to warn that AI could change the stakes on existing or even new bioweapons. This outlet reported yesterday on MI5's new AI threat assessment centre.

Key facts

1. The hearing: On October 13, 2026, the UK House of Commons Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee held an AI safety evidence session, with representatives from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google DeepMind and Meta, four whistleblower former staff members, and senior civil servants.
2. Pro-legislation side: Anthropic's Liam Booth-Smith demanded binding rules; OpenAI's Tom Duff Gordon backed a statutory framework and an international convention, starting with mandatory incident reporting.
3. Opponents: Google DeepMind's Owen Larter said the answer lies in "focus on the standards"; Meta's Rob Sherman said British regulators are "not writing on a blank page."
4. Context: Britain's AI Security Institute can currently test models before release only when companies hand them over voluntarily, and has no power to stop releases it deems unsafe; MI5 announced an AI threat assessment centre the same day.