The UK is starting to draft regulations to govern artificial intelligence, focusing on the most powerful language models which underpin OpenAI’s ChatGPT, people familiar with the matter said.

Policy officials at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology are in the early stages of devising legislation to limit potential harms caused by the emerging technology, according to the people, who asked not to be identified discussing undeveloped proposals. No bill is imminent, and the government is likely to wait until France hosts an AI conference either later this year or early next to launch a consultation on the topic, they said.