King’s Speech

Baroness Uddin Excerpts

Tuesday 14th November 2023 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Uddin (Non-Afl)]

My Lords, I take this opportunity to congratulate the right reverend Prelate the Bishop of Newcastle and the noble Baroness, Lady Owen, on their impressive maiden speeches. I warm- heartedly welcome them to the House. I am also looking forward to the maiden speech of the noble Lord, Lord Ranger.

I welcome the announcement in the King’s Speech that Parliament might be considering introducing legislation relating to science, technology and innovation, and the steps the Government took at the AI safety summit at Bletchley Park. Over the past 18 months, I have had the privilege of leading the work of the All-Party Group on the Metaverse and Web 3.0. I am grateful to my co-chair, Mr Simon Fell MP, Dr Lisa Cameron MP, the noble Lord, Lord Griffiths, and other members of the APPG across both Houses, as well as our partners in the industry. The APPG’s ambition was driven not only by the commercial imperative of British competitiveness but by potential social changes. We have been able to highlight the amazing array of British innovation, which is encouraging global interest and investment.

The APPG also wanted to broaden understanding of the many components that define the technologies that are termed “the metaverse”. In our research, we collaborated with researchers and academics at Greenwich University, New York University, Goldsmiths, Durham University and Surrey University, innovators, organisations and business leaders across many disciplines. We were guided by our advisers, including Professor Yu Xiong of Surrey University, Professor Fernandes of Durham University, Professor Xing of Liverpool University and Professor Johnson of New York University.

The APPG involved schools in our evidence sessions, where students quizzed senior academics and officials at Google and Roblox. I wish to acknowledge our deepest gratitude to all those who co-operated with us, particularly the many students, for their insightful contributions. They demonstrated their prowess during their questioning of a panel of experts on the use of technology. They made useful interventions on improving their safety and experiences, and on the lack of evident diversity in social media platforms and games. It also is worth noting that this work led to our collaboration with Sir David Amess’s Children’s Parliament, which has resulted in us partnering with schools in Africa.

We organised several evidence sessions in partnership with public and private sector organisations, including the British Computer Society, to enable experts and stakeholders to exchange thoughts and ideas across their different sectors. We examined the potential impact of Web 3.0 and the metaverse on various industries, including healthcare, education and governance. Professor Fernandes has just completed his report, which studied the potential impact of the metaverse on the UK regions. Our report was deliberately mindful of the Government’s levelling-up agenda. There is broad consensus that an evolving regulatory framework will be needed for digital ownership, blockchain, governance and compliance, as many noble Lords have stated.

In principle, I support any government attention on AI, given the warnings issued by experts throughout the world—such as the work of our APPG and that of Dr Lisa Cameron, Martin Docherty-Hughes and the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones—who have made significant advances on the discourse of digital transformation. Much of this work leads many of us to conclude that focusing on AI in silos may be detrimental to progressing effective governance of advanced technologies overall.

There is a paradigm shift in digital infrastructures, comprising more autonomous and decentralised platforms, with user-concentric ecosystems and greater personal control of digital identities, data and online interactions—or at least this is promised. It is being developed by monopolies of service providers without adequately addressing the needs and access issues of communities at large.

Therefore, we must address where AI fits within the broader spectrum of a technology ecosystem, including the interconnected nature of the metaverse and web 3.0. Where is it headed given that our knowledge and skills are expanding fast and will produce countless reiterations of products and services? Some of these may seem obscure now but as transformative AI-assisted machine learning widens its scope and function, we as legislators are obliged to ensure that there is an all-encompassing and well-regulated ecosystem which will not only yield benefits to British competitiveness but will honour our social obligation for an inclusive and just society.

This House has distinguished champions and expertise in this field, which was so evident throughout the passage of the Online Safety Bill, and today. We have learned the complexities of the wide range of unregulated technologies in use throughout the world where we have little jurisdiction to stop the horrific harm caused by well-known as well as unidentified creators, as mentioned by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. Hence, our international collaboration in the AI summit is critical to safeguard our national integrity as well as global security.

Metaverse technology is here to stay. The enterprise and industrial metaverses require an extensive set of technical enablers, which means a learned population who can tackle the demands of cloud computing. AI, network structures and connectivity are ranked the most important, according to a worldwide survey undertaken by McKinsey and others. Noble Lords will be aware of notable reports by PwC and Goldman Sachs which suggest the monetary value of the metaverse to be up to $80.2 billion this year.

Many opportunities exist for global co-operation. My time is running out and I will just paraphrase Shakespeare: the tide in the affairs of men may lead to fortune or a life bound in shallows, and when the current is in our favour we must grasp the fortune or lose our ventures. This is our time to progress a global, comprehensive strategy on emerging technology, cultivating the best of our skills and infrastructure.

I end by asking the Minister whether he will consider meeting Professor Fernandes and the team who wrote the report.