While political leaders debate AI safety in Delhi, a more pressing safety crisis is unfolding behind bars in Britain. The numbers are stark: suspected prison assailants have surged 108.6% in just one year, from 35 cases in 2022 to 73 in 2023.

This isn't about artificial intelligence threatening jobs or privacy. This is about real violence, happening right now, in institutions we're supposed to control. (Source: Ministry of Justice, Safety in Custody -- safety-in-custody-assaults-dec-23 -- 3_2_Assaults_by_role)

The contrast is telling. Politicians fly to international summits to discuss hypothetical risks from machines that might become dangerous. Meanwhile, our prisons have already become dangerous, and the data proves it's getting rapidly worse.

Every one of those 73 suspected assailants represents a failure of the system. These aren't just statistics about prison management. They're indicators of institutions losing control, of safety protocols breaking down, of staff unable to maintain order.

When suspected assailants more than double in twelve months, you're not looking at a blip. You're watching a system in crisis. The question isn't whether prisons are becoming more violent. The data answers that definitively. The question is why nobody's treating this emergency with the same urgency as speculative AI risks.

This surge in violence affects everyone inside those walls: prisoners, staff, visitors. But it also signals something broader about Britain's justice system. When the institutions meant to rehabilitate and punish become scenes of escalating violence, the entire premise of criminal justice is under threat.

The timing makes it even more absurd. While global leaders worry about AI safety measures, Britain's prisons need basic safety measures. The technology revolution can wait. The violence happening in our jails cannot.

Those 73 suspected assailants aren't algorithms gone rogue. They're people in a system that's failing to contain the very problems it was designed to address. The data shows we've lost control of our own institutions while debating the control of machines that don't even exist yet.

Britain's politicians might return from Delhi with grand plans for AI governance. But they'll come home to prisons where violence has doubled, and nobody seems to notice.