The head of the company behind the popular Claude chatbot has warned that artificial intelligence will soon be at a place where it will be able to develop without human input.

He told BBC Newsnight: "You want the option to be able to take your foot off the gas and put your foot on the brake.

"Right now, it's like the AI industry has a gas pedal, but it doesn't have a brake pedal."

Clark insisted government policy is integral to controlling AI systems to make sure they are kept under control.

He added: "The world needs to do some thinking and we need to eventually develop some new regulations that allow us to be confident in these systems."

He compared the situation to the oil boom and barons at the turn of the last century.

Clark explained: "Society's response was to come up with a sensible policy and regulatory framework that gave people confidence in oil and the benefits that oil could provide to the world, and meant that you didn't have to worry about the personalities of the people leading the companies.

"That's clearly where we end up here."

Claude is currently operating on code which the system itself wrote 80 percent of.

Clark insisted that raising to 100 within the next two years is possible, and "would have huge implications".

Meanwhile, he admitted that the rise of AI brings about "risks" to go with the "great benefits", and he's concerned for the future.

He said: "I am worried for my kids if we as a society don't have a serious conversation about what the implications of AI's continued advances mean.

"There are potentially great benefits. There are also risks."