Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation

Baroness O'Neill of Bengarve Excerpts

Wednesday 21st November 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

The board of the centre will be able to cope with whichever way round the wording is. It will deal with the balance and the tensions between ethics and innovation—and indeed innovation and ethics.

[Baroness O’Neill of Bengarve (CB)]

My Lords, yesterday evening the British-American Parliamentary Group and Ditchley met to discuss these topics. It was an interesting meeting, but it did reveal how readily innovation drives ethics. I say this as an academic philosopher, and it is quite important. The innovation questions are of great importance, but they are not the only questions, and I hope that steps will be taken to ensure that there is suitable rigour in the analysis of the ethical issues. The debate is full of pitfalls and inadequacies, including phrases such as “communication ethics” and “data ethics”, which ultimately mean nothing. Ethics is about what you do: it is not about data and communication. So I hope that there will be room for that sort of rigour on this advisory—and ultimately statutory—body.

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I completely agree with the noble Baroness. In dealing with modern technology, we often forget the very important point she makes. Ethics is about how you live your life and deal with things in a way that has a moral basis. I absolutely accept that, in dealing with modern technology and especially things such as AI, ethics is a very important component. That is precisely why they have also included not just technical people but parliamentarians and professional philosophers, to consider and to make sure that those aspects are given sufficient weight.