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UK officials are assessing economic and security risks if Britons are blocked from new AI models, after a brief restriction involving Anthropic’s Fable 5.
In short: The UK government is urgently assessing what would happen if Britons were blocked from using the newest US-made AI models.
UK officials have asked the Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade to examine the economic impact if people in the UK could not access new versions of advanced AI models from companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI. People familiar with the matter told the Financial Times the work should be completed within weeks.
The review follows a June directive from US President Donald Trump that demanded foreign national access to Anthropic’s “Fable 5” model be rescinded. Anthropic temporarily removed access, then later relaunched the model globally, according to the report.
The episode raised concerns in Whitehall about the UK depending on tools that could be restricted by another country’s decisions. “Frontier AI models” means the newest and most capable systems (like having the latest smartphone features, but for writing, coding, and analysis).
Officials are also looking at security risks. One worry is that criminals or hostile states using the newest AI elsewhere could find weaknesses in UK companies faster than those companies can fix them (like burglars getting a better set of lock-picks before you upgrade your locks). Separately, the Home Office has been reviewing how common AI is in criminal methods.
Labour MP Dame Chi Onwurah said assessing the impact is good, but the UK also needs a plan to reduce “dependency” on overseas AI. Former National Cyber Security Centre chief Ciaran Martin said it seems unlikely the US would broadly restrict American AI models from foreigners, but he warned the US could still have significant leverage.
Many UK businesses are trying to use the latest AI to save time on office tasks, from writing software to handling routine legal and accounting work. If access is delayed or blocked, even briefly, officials believe it could slow work and hurt the economy.
Source: Financial Times
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