Prince Harry joined calls for an urgent slowdown in the development of artificial intelligence, calling it the “ultimate sycophant” and warning that the technology is moving too fast for researchers to keep up.
The Duke of Sussex made the comments at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) conference in New York. The conference comes amid growing alarm over AI after an employee at major company Anthropic said there was a more than 10% chance of human extinction due to AI within 10 years.
In his first public appearance in the United States since returning to Britain, Prince Harry focused in particular on the risks to children. Chatbots and other systems developed by tech giants are designed to “find you, trap you, exploit you, destroy you and then blame you,” he warned.
While praising global progress in restricting children’s access to social media and holding tech giants to account, Prince Harry warned: “Technology is moving forward. It’s moving fast.”
He pointed to a lawsuit alleging that an AI chatbot contributed to the death of a teenager who “trusted that a child should not ask an algorithm alone.”
“Social media has learned how to get our attention. AI has learned how to enter our relationships,” Harry said. He argued that companies are distancing themselves from responsibility for the systems they have built, choosing instead to place the blame on parents and children.
“It doesn’t just want your attention. It wants your attachment. It wants to be the one you confide in. It’s the one that remembers you, the one that tells you it understands you, and it’s the ultimate sycophant. And for a child, that difference is very important,” he added.
Harry called for slowing down the development of AI and prioritizing innovation around trust and safety.
“Even the people building these systems are warning us about what will happen when capabilities exceed safety and human control,” he said.
The Duke of Sussex’s speech was marred by a malfunctioning teleprompter, forcing him to finish it in two parts.
“The AI got into my speech and told me to come out and finish it,” he joked as he returned to the stage.
Harry is known for speaking out in high-profile campaigns about the negative impact of technology on young people. His speech at CGI 2024 focused on the dangers of social media and targeted the heads of “dangerously powerful” social media conglomerates.
His appearance in New York comes less than a month after he returned to the UK with his wife, Duchess Meghan, and children Prince Archie and Princess Lilibet.
New signs of tension within the royal family emerged recently after a letter sent on behalf of King Charles revealed that Prince Harry and Duchess Meghan should be treated as “civilians” upon their return.
A spokesperson for the couple said the Sussexes were “surprised” by the letter.
Meanwhile, Prince Harry’s uncle Earl Spencer continues to defend the claim, claiming in his book that after Prince Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, died in 1997, King Charles said: “We will soon forget about her.” Buckingham Palace strongly responded to the allegations.
This story has been updated with new information.
