Asked by
To ask His Majesty’s Government, further to the Bletchley
Declaration, what timescale they believe is appropriate for the
introduction of further UK legislation to regulate artificial
intelligence.
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for
Science, Innovation and Technology () (Con)
Regulators have existing powers that enable them to regulate AI
within their remits and are already actively doing so. For
example, the CMA has now published its initial review of
foundation models. The AI regulation White Paper set out our
adaptive, evidence-based regulatory framework, which allows
government to respond to new risks as AI develops. We will be
setting out an update on our regulatory approach through the
White Paper consultation response shortly.
(Lab)
My Lords, two weeks ago, France, Germany and Italy published a
joint paper on AI regulation, executive orders have already
committed the US to specific regulatory guardrails, and the
debate about the EU’s AI Act is ongoing. By contrast, we appear
to have adopted a policy that may generously be described as
masterly inactivity. Apart from waiting for Professor Bengio’s
report, what steps are the Government taking to give the AI
sector and the wider public some idea of the approach the UK will
take to mitigate and regulate risk in AI? I hope the Minister can
answer this: in the meantime, what is the legal basis for the use
of AI in sensitive areas of the public sector?
(Con)
I think I would regret a characterisation of AI regulation in
this country as non-existent. All regulators and their sponsoring
government departments are empowered to act on AI and are
actively doing so. They are supported and co-ordinated in this
activity by new and existing central AI functions: the central AI
risk function, the CDEI, the AI standards hub and others. That is
ongoing. It is an adaptive model which puts us not behind anyone
in regulating AI that I am aware of. It is an adaptive model, and
as evidence emerges we will adapt it further, which will allow us
to maintain the balance of AI safety and innovation. With respect
to the noble Lord’s second question, I will happily write to
him.
(LD)
My Lords, the Government have just conducted a whole summit about
the risks of AI, so why in the new data protection Bill are they
weakening the already limited legal safeguards that currently
exist to protect individuals from AI systems making automated
decisions about them in ways that could lead to discrimination or
disadvantage? Is this not perverse even by this Government’s
standards?
(Con)
I do not think “perverse” is justified. GDPR Article 22 addresses
automated individual decision-making, but, as I am sure the noble
Lord knows, the DPDI Bill recasts Article 22 as the right to
specific safeguards rather than a general prohibition on
automated decision-making, so that subjects have to be informed
about it and can seek a human review of decisions. It also
defines meaningful human involvement.
(CB)
When I asked the Minister in October why deepfakes could not be
banned, he replied that he could not see a pathway to do so, as
they were developed anywhere in the world. In the Online Safety
Act, tech companies all over the world are now required not to
disseminate harms to children. Why can the harms of deepfakes not
be similarly proscribed?
(Con)
I remember the question. It is indeed very important. There are
two pieces to preventing deepfakes being presented to British
users: one is where they are created and the second is how they
are presented to those users. They are created to a great extent
overseas, and we can do very little about that. As the noble
Viscount said, the Online Safety Act creates a great many
barriers to the dissemination and presentation of deepfakes to a
British audience.
(Con)
My Lords, the MoD published its AI strategy in June 2022. Among
other priorities, the MoD aspired to be, on AI, the world’s most
effective defence organisation for its size, through the delivery
of battle-winning capability and supporting functions and our
ability to collaborate and partner with UK allies and AI
ecosystems. Can my noble friend the Minister confirm to me that
nothing in current discussions will compromise the commendable
and critical delivery of that objective?
(Con)
I thank my noble friend for that question on the important area
of AI usage in defence. As she will recall, AI in defence is
principally conducted within the remit of the Ministry of Defence
itself. My role has very little oversight of that, but I will
take steps with government colleagues to confirm an answer for my
noble friend.
(Lab)
My Lords, the Minister referred earlier to new risks. Sadly, the
rapid development of AI has given rise to deepfake video and
audio of political leaders, most recently the London Mayor,
. We debated such issues during
the passage of the Online Safety Act, but many were left feeling
that the challenges that AI poses to our democratic processes
were not sufficiently addressed. With a general election on the
horizon who knows when, what steps are the Minister and his
ministerial colleagues taking to protect our proud democratic
traditions from bad actors and their exploitation of these new
technologies? This is urgent.
(Con)
I thank the noble Lord for raising this; it is extremely urgent.
In my view, few things could be more catastrophic than the loss
of faith in our electoral process. In addition to the protections
that will be in place through the Online Safety Act, the
Government have set up the Defending Democracy Taskforce under
the chairmanship of the Minister for Security, with a range of
ministerial and official activities around it. That task force
will engage closely, both nationally, with Parliament and other
groups and stakeholders, and internationally, to learn from
allies who are also facing elections over the same period.
(CB)
My Lords, I declare an interest as the First Civil Service
Commissioner. If we want to regulate and to introduce
legislation, the Government themselves will require a set of
skills that they currently may not have. Can the Minister assure
the House that we will have within government the skills to
regulate artificial intelligence?
(Con)
When the then frontier model task force was set up, we had in
senior officialdom a total of three years of PhD-level experience
in AI safety. I am pleased to say that that number is now 150. We
have probably the greatest concentration of AI safety researchers
and scientists of any nation working currently for the United
Kingdom Government on this crucial issue of AI safety.
(Con)
My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister on the
recent AI safety summit. It is interesting that the EU is
currently debating an AI regulation and tying itself up in knots
about whether to regulate large language models or the
application of AI. Can the Minister give an indication, first, of
which direction the Government are heading, and, secondly, what
discussions he has had with our colleagues in Brussels on the
future of AI regulation?
(Con)
I thank my noble friend for his congratulations with respect to
the AI safety summit. We continue to engage internationally, not
just with the larger international AI fora but very regularly
with our colleagues in the US and the EU, both at ministerial and
official level. The eventual landing zone of international
interoperable AI regulations needs to be very harmonious between
nations; we are pursuing that goal avidly. I may say that we are
at this point more closely aligned to the US approach, which
closely mirrors our own.
(Lab)
My Lords, in answer to my noble friend Lord Bassam on the Front
Bench a moment ago, the Minister referred to the Defending
Democracy Taskforce. When you consider that the National Cyber
Security Centre, which is part of GCHQ, has recently publicly
warned that in the next general election we will be subjected to
a great many deepfakes along the lines indicated—we have seen
them in action already—will the Minister agree to bring to the
House, at an early stage, evidence of what the Defending
Democracy Taskforce is doing? There is a sense of urgency here.
As everyone knows, there will probably be a general election next
year. On behalf of the electorate, we want to know that they will
be able to understand what is real and what is not.
(Con)
Indeed. I should point out that the NCSC and other cyber actors
are also involved in the Defending Democracy Taskforce. I will
liaise with the task force to understand what exactly the
communications and engagement arrangements are with Parliament
and elsewhere. I will take steps to make that happen.
