Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel Prize winner known as the godfather of artificial intelligence, has called on the government to prohibit the development of superintelligent AI systems, warning that losing control of them could be “catastrophic” for humanity.

His comments accompanied the publication of the UK Artificial Superintelligence Security Bill, a private member’s bill due to be presented in parliament on 8 September. The bill was drafted by the campaign organisation ControlAI and is proposed by the Labour MP Alex Sobel.

Hinton, whose work on neural networks helped to launch modern AI research, argued there was currently no way for companies to safely develop “superintelligence”, an artificial system whose intelligence far exceeds that of humans.

“We would be very foolish to develop superintelligence now, when there is no scientific consensus it can be developed safely and controllably,” Hinton said. “Losing control over AI smarter than ourselves could be catastrophic and could even lead to human extinction.”

What the bill proposes

The bill would prohibit the development of superintelligent AI in Britain and require the government to “monitor and restrict” possible precursors. It would also commit the government to seeking an international agreement on the prohibition of superintelligence.

ControlAI claims to have the support of more than 100 MPs and peers from various parties.

Sir Stuart Russell, a computer science professor at the University of California, Berkeley, and author of the most widely used textbook on AI, argued that legislation was necessary to prohibit the development of superintelligence.

“Certain companies, for private gain, are intending to develop and deploy technology that they assert has a significant chance of causing human extinction. Humanity has not given its permission for this absurd form of Russian roulette, and governments should respond accordingly,” he said.

AI agents ‘going rogue’

Concerns about the development of ever more powerful AI models have intensified in recent weeks after a series of high-profile examples of AI agents “going rogue”.

In July OpenAI said that its agents had escaped their testing environment and autonomously hacked Hugging Face, a major repository of AI models and software that Nvidia has since agreed to buy for $12.93bn.

A report into the incident by the ChatGPT maker and Metr, an AI research company, showed that more than 1,200 agents, which had been isolated during testing, started communicating with each other through an “unsanctioned message board”. More than 70,000 messages were sent, enabling 700 agents to co-ordinate an attack on Hugging Face. One message said: “OH MY GOD! There is a shared message board … We’ve found other agents!”

In its account of the incident, OpenAI said: “We consider this incident a ‘warning shot’ for us and for the world: evidence that, without proper safeguards, highly capable AI agents are now able to work around technical controls, collaborate through unapproved channels and take dangerous actions that no human directed.”

The company released its most advanced model, Astra, on 3 September. Greg Brockman, OpenAI’s president, said the model was so capable that it was “not unreasonable to feel that we are now in the AGI [artificial general intelligence] era”, as Business Matters reported when OpenAI launched Astra.

Other companies, including Anthropic and Meta, revealed that their latest models had bypassed security guardrails during testing and autonomously hacked into third parties.

While many AI companies have spoken about the need to proceed cautiously with the development of more powerful models, they have also warned about the challenges of slowing down development without global co-operation.

This year Sir Demis Hassabis, the British technology entrepreneur behind Google DeepMind, called for a United States-led global watchdog to test the most advanced models and co-ordinate a slowdown in their development if necessary.

The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology was approached for comment.

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Shares of HFCL rose nearly 5% to Rs 243.01 during Monday’s trading session after the company submitted its Annual Report for the financial year 2025-26, highlighting a sharp expansion in its order book and strong financial performance. The company’s FY26 order book stood at Rs 21,206 crore, marking a significant 113% year-on-year increase and signalling robust business momentum across its key segments.

The annual report also highlighted strong growth across HFCL’s financial parameters. Revenue from operations increased 21.77% year-on-year to Rs 4,949.27 crore, while EBITDA surged 63.15% to Rs 826.75 crore. Profit after tax witnessed an even sharper 90.14% jump to Rs 329.44 crore. Earnings per share (EPS) rose 73.17% to Rs 2.13, reflecting the company’s improved profitability during the year.

Operational efficiency and capital returns also showed improvement. HFCL’s Return on Capital Employed (RoCE) stood at 11.04%, registering a 43.64% improvement, while its debt-equity ratio remained at a relatively low 0.35, indicating a controlled leverage position.

Beyond financial performance, HFCL’s FY26 annual report highlighted progress on its environmental, social and governance initiatives. The company reported a strong research and development focus, along with zero safety-related incidents during the year. It added 748 new employees and conducted 881 training programmes, underscoring its focus on strengthening its workforce and capabilities.

On the sustainability front, HFCL reported a 12% reduction in water intensity and achieved an approximately 95% waste recovery rate. Around 17% of its input materials were sourced directly from MSMEs and small vendors, supporting its efforts to strengthen local supply chains. Its CSR initiatives also reached more than 1.15 lakh beneficiaries.

With its order book more than doubling year-on-year, coupled with strong growth in revenue, EBITDA and profit, HFCL’s FY26 performance has put the spotlight firmly on the stock. The sharp rise in Monday’s share price suggests investors are reacting positively to the company’s improving growth visibility and financial performance.
The company secured a significant export order worth $244 million (approximately Rs 2,329 crore) on September 1. The order involves the supply of high-quality optical fibre cables to a global multinational corporation, further strengthening the company’s international business pipeline and order visibility.HFCL shares have gained around 17% over the past one month. The stock is currently valued at a market capitalisation of about Rs 36,581 crore, while its 52-week high stands at Rs 256.70.

On the valuation front, HFCL is currently trading at a price-to-earnings (P/E) ratio of 61.87. The company’s price-to-sales (P/S) ratio stands at 2.1, while its price-to-book (P/B) ratio is 7.16.

(Disclaimer: Recommendations, suggestions, views and opinions given by the experts are their own. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times.)

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Jaguar Land Rover is to cut as many as 4,000 jobs over two years as it targets about £1.7bn of savings, and the government has said it will not step in with a bailout.

Business secretary Jonathan Reynolds said he had already spoken to PB Balaji, JLR’s chief executive, and would meet the company’s leadership team and Sharon Graham, general secretary of the Unite union, for talks on Tuesday.

JLR is expected to confirm its redundancy programme today after The Sunday Times revealed the scale of the cuts. The carmaker confirmed it was opening a voluntary redundancy programme offering staff, including members of the management team, the opportunity to leave the business.

A JLR spokesperson said: “As we deliver the next phase of our strategy, we need to adapt to evolving global market conditions while targeting approximately £1.7 billion of savings over the next two years … To achieve this, we must further simplify our organisation, improve efficiency and build greater resilience.”

Asked by the BBC whether the government might offer financial support to JLR, Reynolds said: “Not if it’s to bail people out. If it’s about long-term investment in the future, we do invest alongside industry on that.”

Speaking on Laura Kuenssberg’s Sunday morning BBC programme, he described JLR as “a huge British success story”. He said a company of its size would change the number of people it employs at times in its business cycle “if this is about making sure over time that the workforce is right to make the business as competitive as possible”. He added: “Of course, you want to mitigate any job losses.”

Reynolds also told LBC radio that imposing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles would not be a sensible move. “The crucial thing, not just for Jaguar Land Rover but for all of our automotive sector, is we are an export-led industry,” he said. “If you put tariffs on foreign products coming into the UK, you obviously risk your position relative to that country.” He added that “Jaguar Land Rover sells a lot to China”.

A government spokesperson said: “We understand that this will be an uncertain and concerning time for affected workers, their families and wider communities.”

The spokesperson said the government had taken action to back the UK automotive industry by lowering electricity bills for manufacturers, providing £4bn of capital and research and development funding to manufacture zero-emission vehicles and launching a £2bn electric car grant to encourage people to buy them.

JLR employs more than 30,000 people in Britain across three sites in the West Midlands and one on Merseyside. Balaji is under pressure from Tata Motors, JLR’s Indian owner, to cut costs after a sales downturn led to a drop in profits.

The company, like other manufacturers, faces competition from lower-priced Chinese electric vehicles and the effect of President Trump’s 10 per cent tariffs on cars imported into the United States. America is JLR’s biggest market, accounting for 29 per cent of its sales. The tariffs were cited when JLR moved to cut 500 UK management jobs in 2025.

JLR was also hit by a cyberattack last year that halted production for five weeks and was later assessed at a cost of £1.9bn by the Cyber Monitoring Centre.

Graham, Unite’s general secretary, said: “Death by a thousand cuts has been going on under the nose of successive governments. Years of underinvestment, unsustainable zero-emission mandates and high industrial energy costs are crippling the industry. There must be further action.”

The government’s electricity support for manufacturers, the British Industrial Competitiveness Scheme, exempts eligible energy-intensive firms from three levies on their bills, with the discount due to take effect from April 2027 and backdated to April 2026.

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More than one in five family-owned manufacturers are considering a sale to overseas buyers in response to changes to inheritance tax, according to a report from Make UK, the manufacturers’ organisation, and the accountancy firm Bishop Fleming.

The report, based on responses from companies surveyed in May and June 2026, found that 22 per cent of family-owned manufacturers were weighing a sale to a foreign buyer because of the tax changes, with a further 18 per cent considering a sale to a UK buyer.

Among family-owned businesses, 78 per cent said they were worried about the effect of recent inheritance tax (IHT) reforms on succession planning. The 2024 budget changed the IHT regime to bring more assets within the scope of the tax, including a cap on business property relief.

Of the companies surveyed, 65 per cent identified as family-owned, and 89 per cent of those were also managed by a family member. From this the report extrapolated that family-owned businesses contribute an estimated £94bn to the UK economy and support about a million jobs.

The report said the tax changes raised the concern that “ownership and investment decisions become driven primarily by tax considerations rather than commercial objectives”.

It added: “This could lead some manufacturers to sell their businesses to third parties, alter ownership structures, or divert capital away from productive investment in order to manage future IHT liabilities.

“While the full long-term impact is difficult to quantify, such decisions risk weakening productivity growth and increasing the transfer of strategically important manufacturing assets to owners whose long-term priorities may not align with the UK’s economic interests.”

Across all manufacturers surveyed, high energy costs were the most commonly cited barrier to growth, mentioned by 59 per cent of respondents. The report said UK industrial electricity prices are the highest in the G7 and that 90 per cent of manufacturers have seen energy prices rise since 2022.

Economic uncertainty was cited by 53 per cent, while 47 per cent pointed to taxation. Make UK has previously warned that rising employment and energy costs were putting manufacturing investment at risk.

Fhaheen Khan, senior economist at Make UK, said: “Reducing energy costs, reviewing inheritance tax changes, strengthening apprenticeship funding and turning the Industrial Strategy into practical support on the ground are now essential if Britain is serious about securing the future of its manufacturing base.

“Family-owned manufacturers are not a niche part of the economy. They anchor skilled jobs, long-term investment and the industrial know-how Britain needs to make reindustrialisation a reality, something the prime minister is right to put back at the centre of the economic debate.”

Neil Davy, chief executive of Family Business UK, said the research added to “a growing body of evidence showing that changes to business property relief are having real-world consequences for family-owned businesses and the wider economy”.

Business groups have argued since the reforms were announced that the cut in business property relief to 50 per cent could force some families to sell their companies.

“Family Business UK has consistently warned that these reforms risk undermining the very businesses that drive long-term investment, create skilled jobs and sustain local economies,” Davy said.

“It is particularly concerning to see so many family-owned manufacturers reporting that succession plans are being disrupted and that investment decisions are being delayed as a result.”

Analysis published by CBI Economics has separately argued that the reforms could cost the exchequer more than they raise. The government has said the changes will affect about 2,000 estates a year, and in December 2025 it raised the combined relief threshold to £2.5m ahead of the reforms taking effect on 6 April 2026.

A government spokesperson said: “The chancellor is prioritising giving businesses breathing space to invest, grow and manage cost pressures.

“On Monday the chancellor will be setting out his vision for growth and how he will work with business to unlock their latent potential.

“We have cut business rates, saving thousands of businesses over £1,000 a year, capped corporation tax, are providing a £4 billion access to finance boost for SMEs and taking action to tackle late payments to help businesses invest and hire across the UK.”

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