Rishi Sunak has said mitigating the risk of extinction because of artificial intelligence should be a global priority alongside pandemics and nuclear war.

The Prime Minister said he wanted to be “honest” with the public about the risks of AI, as he made a speech on the emerging technology.

As the Government published new assessments on artificial intelligence, Mr Sunak said they offered a “stark warning”.

“Get this wrong and it could make it easier to build chemical or biological weapons.

“Terrorist groups could use AI to spread fear and disruption on an even greater scale,” he said.

“Criminals could exploit AI for cyber attacks, disinformation, fraud or even child sexual abuse.

“And in the most unlikely but extreme cases, there is even the risk that humanity could lose control of AI completely through the kind of AI sometimes referred to as ‘super intelligence’.”

But he said that it was “not a risk that people need to be losing sleep over right now” and he did not want to be “alarmist”.

The Government will host an AI Safety Summit at Bletchley Park next week, bringing together world leaders, tech firms and civil society to discuss the emerging technology.

Ahead of the summit, Mr Sunak announced the Government would establish the “world’s first” AI Safety Institute, which the Prime Minister said would “carefully examine, evaluate and test new types of AI so that understand what each new model is capable of” and “exploring all the risks”.