United Kingdom, July 6 -- Foreign Secretary Yvette Cooper has warned that artificial intelligence poses a "Hiroshima"-style threat to humanity unless governments agree international rules to control its development.

In an essay published by the Chatham House thinktank, Cooper said the world must not wait for a catastrophic AI event before taking coordinated action, arguing the technology will become the defining foreign policy challenge over the next two years.

Drawing comparisons with the nuclear weapon dropped on the Japanese city in 1945 , she wrote: "On nuclear, international agreement came only after the world saw the terrifying power of the new technology at Hiroshima - and asked what would happen if it fell into the wrong hands. ...