Artificial Intelligence Opportunities Action Plan

Debate between Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle and Lord Vallance of Balham

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank the noble Lord for his enthusiasm for the white heat of SMRs, which is an important point. There is a very clear set of recommendations, from an entrepreneur who understands how to set up and run companies. The approach is one of ensuring that there is funding for start-ups, innovation, regulatory clearance and a procurement pool, which are exactly the types of things that will deliver growth. They are facilitators of growth, because the noble Lord is right that growth comes from the private sector. That is what must be supported and that is what this plan aims to do.

On the power supply, I have already said that the join-up between DSIT and DESNZ in the energy council is exactly the right approach to make sure that we get a joined-up government approach to this. I suspect that it will require SMRs, among other approaches to getting energy in the right place.

[Baroness Bennett of Manor Castle (GP)]

My Lords, I draw the Minister’s attention The AI Mirror, a book by Shannon Vallor, who holds a chair at the Edinburgh Futures Institute. It makes the crucial point that generative so-called artificial intelligence is not intelligent or creative but only reflects back to us—hence the mirror metaphor—what we have previously created. Will the Government acknowledge that one of the great risks of the explosion in the use of AI is stagnation—a building in and entrenching of the discrimination, racism and inequalities that already exist across our public and private systems, as was infamously demonstrated in Australia in the Robodebt scandal?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

It is important to recognise that there is more than one type of AI, including generative AI and specific models. It is the case that AI is very dependent on the data put in, and there are risks of bias being entrenched. That is an important safety issue that must be looked at and that we must be aware of. On whether it is intelligent, the answer is that we are not in the era of general artificial intelligence but at an earlier stage. These are not yet fully intelligent machines. Whether they get to that and over what time period is something of an unknown, but we are in an era where we can do pretty remarkable things, and we should harness that.