Advanced Artificial Intelligence

Baroness Primarolo Excerpts

Monday 24th July 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Primarolo (Lab)]

My Lords, I too congratulate the noble Lord, Lord Ravensdale, on securing this debate. Frankly, the breadth of the contributions thus far shows the urgent need for Parliament to be actively involved and to make sure that those technologies are held accountable. Of course, the big question is how.

In the short time available today I want to touch on another impact of AI: the impact of AI in the workplace and its potential implications for the future of work. I am grateful to Mary Towers of the TUC for the very helpful information she has provided about workplace experience, and I can give only a few of those examples today. The TUC has produced a manifesto, Dignity at Work and the AI Revolution, laying out the values that we should adopt to make sure that technology at work is for the benefit of everyone, and that we should continue to assert the importance of human agency in the face of technological control.

Amid much of the hype and worry about a data-driven transformation of our world, there is, frankly, something missing: the experience of those who are already having their lives changed. Their experience helps us to understand AI and the change it brings to our lives, affecting every relationship and interaction we have, in the workplace, in our families, as consumers and as citizens. Our lives are enmeshed in—and some say dominated by—data. Data is constantly collected about who we are, what we do and the environment in which we live and work.

Forty years ago, academics, medical experts, researchers and civil society came together on a major advance in medical ethics. The challenge they had at that time was embryology and the question of how to bring together science and what our communities believed was acceptable without at the same time stifling the technology and making it unable to deliver the very best of its opportunities. I am not saying that we can do exactly the same now, but it is about bringing together the ethics to underpin the work that is being done. Any noble Lord contributing to this debate must surely be worried that, by the time they sit down, the whole area will have advanced yet again.

The intersection of technology and work has often been a source of conflict and disagreement. The predictions of technologically driven wealth creation are hailed as a route to greater leisure and well-being, but that vision is miles from the experience of those earning £10.50 an hour at the Amazon factory in Coventry. Amazon’s technologically intensive business practices undermine their belief in themselves, holding them to targets that they can never know and governing them using technologies and data that are still developing and are not perfect.

Your Lordships should also look at the experience of Equity, the performers’ union, which has campaigned to stop AI stealing the show, as performers are having their images, voices and likenesses reproduced by the technology. Royal Mail requires its workers to use portable digital assistants. The workers describe it as having a tracking device on them constantly, saying that management simply does not trust them. Many feel that these PDAs are creating a punitive work culture.

How can we get agreement on the future of AI if we do not have the transparency, accountability, debate and discussion to make all our citizens feel that they are to be protected? Whether it is in the context of defence, the home, work or the environment, consent and trust are crucial. This is about evaluation, openness, data, ethical integrity and compliance with human rights.

As the noble Lord, Lord Anderson, said in his very valuable contribution, any regulation has to be founded on civil liberties and be accountable to Parliament, and include the commitment and involvement of our citizens. I cannot tell the Minister how to do this, but I hope your Lordships’ House will make a massive contribution to this very wide debate.