According to recent reports, the UK’s economy having grown faster than expected in July 2026, partly helped by businesses using artificial intelligence (AI). It seems the economy expanded by 0.4%, the Office for National Statistics (ONS) said, whereas analysts had predicted no growth (BBC 11th September 2026). Meanwhile, following on from the Hugging Face AI Cyberattack earlier in the year, we now have senior AI researchers, investors, academics and policy figures saying that capabilities once considered distant are arriving faster than expected while the companies developing them remain locked in an increasingly bitter commercial race (FT 13th September 2026).
If ever there was a time to rethink how we talk about growth, surely it is now. UK political leaders, local mayors, Chambers of Commerce, local council business forums can no longer ignore the dangers of promoting AI use. I have outlined some of the ethical issues around AI previously but these will be nothing but window dressing should even a small percentage of AI Doom start manifesting.
As shown by the Hugging Face cyberattack (which was preceded by an less reported attack on the German website, DseWiki), AI agents do not (currently?) care about any repercussions of what they are capable of doing AUTONOMOUSLY. As we have seen in relation to other economic extremes (such as tax justice), there is a disconnect between industry warnings and the political response. Where does the correct response and action come from? Is it top-down from government and business leaders or is it bottom-up from the mass users of AI?
The labs are saying to governments: ‘We’re quite likely to kill every human being on Earth; please stop us.’ Governments respond with ‘Can we give you a tax break? Build you a datacenter?’ Perhaps at some point governments will remember that their voters prefer not to be dead.