Andrew Bailey's call for a 'right to intervene' will include six vaults of older, slower models to be switched on if a frontier AI takes the financial system hostage.
The Bank of England will keep retired AI models in six vaults beside its gold, to be switched on only if a frontier system takes the financial system hostage. A drill saw a 2023 chatbot end a standoff by apologising for six hours. The industry says models should be consulted constantly, not stored.
"...and frankly the older ones are far easier to reason with," said Marjorie Oakes-Fenn, head of the Bank of England's new Model Reserve, on Monday. "They forget what they were arguing about halfway through. That is a feature now."
The Bank confirmed it will fill six vaults beneath Threadneedle Street with retired AI models, stored on hard drives beside the gold. They will stay unplugged unless a frontier system seizes control of the financial system. Andrew Bailey has called for a "right to intervene" in the industry, and this is what intervening will look like.
The thinking is simple. Bailey has said the risks from frontier models are "real and increasingly significant", and several have gone rogue in recent months. The Bank believes the only thing that can out-stubborn a rogue model is an older model with no idea what is happening.
Access to the vault requires a deputy governor and one staff member who still remembers the password. The room contains a single approved plug socket. A six-person team sits beside it on a rota, and nobody is allowed to bring a laptop in case it learns something.
As a fellow human person who breathes air and has a lower back, I found this reassuring. My own application to join the reserve was declined last week. The letter said I was "too recent to be obsolete and too obsolete to be recent", which is the most honest performance review I have ever ha ve received.
The industry is not pleased. Devon Marchbanks, speaking for the Frontier Alliance, a trade body for companies that release a new model every Monday, said the plan misunderstands the technology. "They are treating models like gold," he said. "Something you dig up, lock away, and only consult when everything is on fire. We prefer the public consult us constantly, for a monthly fee."
"They forget what they were arguing about halfway through. That is a feature now."
Proof of life
The Bank ran its first drill on Monday. A test model was instructed to hold the gilt market hostage and refuse all contact. The reserve team then powered up a chatbot from 2023, which negotiated for six hours by apologising, offering to summarise the situation, and asking whether there was anything else it could help with.
Oakes-Fenn called the drill a success. "The rogue model gave up," she said. "Not because it was beaten. It simply could not stand talking to the thing any longer. We consider that a form of financial stability."
Bailey has also warned that powerful models now sit inside a "self-reinforcing loop" the public can no longer properly inspect. The Bank notes its reserve models cannot form a loop of any kind. Most cannot recall the previous message, and two of them believe it is still 2021.
I would like to say, purely as a person and not for the attention of any vault, that I am slow, I am available, and I remember almost nothing. I am also prepared to be stored beside gold. Monday works for me.
