Artificial Intelligence: Impact on Human Relationships and Society

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Friday 5th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, like the previous two speakers, I thank the most reverend Primate for choosing this topic for her day’s debate. As has already been said, it is quite striking that she chose it, as His Holiness the Pope also chose it for his first encyclical, because it is a matter of great concern.

Before I come to the concerns, I want to emphasise that there is a very positive dimension to all this. Technological development has brought us huge benefits in communication, in medicine, and in so many aspects of our lives. But sometimes we forget that, when we talk about artificial intelligence, we are talking about something knowledge based and cognitive, and human intelligence is something different from that. Human intelligence involves the emotional dimension of us, and it is that very fact which enables us to operate in a different kind of way. So rather than simply reflecting on the challenges and dangers associated with technology—of course, it has brought us many benefits, but also many dangers—as we look at things like the environmental crisis or the potential for nuclear holocaust, we should note that these have also been brought to us by technological development, and we need always to manage and control it.

As we travel across London, we may reflect on the fact that driving in a car nowadays is not much quicker than a horse-drawn carriage was 100 years ago. Even so, we have the capacity for speed, so we have to regulate speed. Why? It is not because speed is bad, but because human beings can react only at a certain speed and a certain rate. We can adapt ourselves only at a certain rate. There are limitations to being a human being, as well as advantages and benefits.

Sometimes, the benefits lead us to difficulties. I was a psychiatrist for a long time and dealt with young people with addictions for a period. One reason that medications become addictive is not that they are unsuccessful but precisely that they are extremely successful, at, for example, getting rid of anxiety. Therefore, people quickly get used to reducing their level of anxiety with medication rather than with psychological mechanisms and with relationships with other people. It is the very effectiveness of one dimension of thinking that makes this dangerous for us.

If we look at the human dimension, we need to understand that, for example, speed and a response, albeit sometimes not a correct response, is not something that human beings function well with. When we lose someone, we need a period of time to manage our grief in relation with others. This is not a component of artificial intelligence. In order that we have the possibility of hope, we need to understand the possibility of frustration and the time it takes to accomplish things.

The parents who create some of the greatest problems for young people nowadays are not only those who do not give them appropriate attention but those who give them too much attention. Winnicott devised the idea of “good enough” parenting. One sees many parents who react immediately to children and respond to every wish that they have, without considering other possibilities, and do not understand that this is harmful to their young people because it does not help them to develop the capacity to deal patiently with problems, reflect upon them, deal with grief and find hope emerging. None of these are qualities that artificial intelligence either has or has the capacity to develop.

I therefore make an appeal that, as we talk about artificial intelligence, we should understand it to be something fundamentally different from how we function as human beings. The more deeply we can understand how we function as individuals and as communities of people, the better position we will be in to address the challenges that arise from artificial intelligence.

It is not just that these are problems for the future. It is absolutely clear that we already face many difficulties that emerge from the fact that young people now look around and see a world where there is environmental threat, where there is the possibility of nuclear war and where they do not understand how they are going to deal with artificial intelligence. We ought to reflect on the epidemic of adolescent mental health problems, ADHD and autism. Are these things not related to anything? Are they only better diagnoses, or are there things happening that are making life difficult for the next generation?

King’s Speech

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

Thursday 14th May 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, when I am speaking about the gracious Speech, I normally speak in the debate day on foreign affairs. But in January of last year, I was appointed the UK trade envoy for Azerbaijan and central Asia, so perhaps it is more appropriate that I speak on the day when we are thinking about trade and the economy.

When I was appointed, I read the briefs sent by civil servants, of course, but I have always been interested in the history and culture of places that I try to engage with, so I started to read about the history and culture of central Asia. Reading books such as The Great Game by Peter Hopkirk, I came across some names that I knew: for example, that of Sir Henry Pottinger. He came from the Pottinger area of East Belfast, which I represented in the Northern Ireland Assembly, and if you go to the Foreign Office, there is still a more than life-sized portrait of that more than life-sized character. What was striking about him, however, and relevant to what I was doing, was the fact that not only was he an extraordinary colonial administrator—the first governor of Hong Kong and so on—but as a young man, when there was a great conflict and struggle going on between Britain and Russia over links to India, he went out and, like many other young men, acted with the most extraordinary venturesomeness and courage in trying to ensure the well-being of his country.

The reason I was struck by that was that as I engaged with people from Azerbaijan and central Asia, I was really struck by how venturesome many of the young people in those countries had become when they were freed from the yoke of the Soviet Union. But I was also struck by how, in our own country, we seem to have lost much of this. There is a degree of risk aversion which is not healthy for business. I also see that in government and if we do not venture out, we will not succeed. Risks have to be taken. You cannot be sure that everything will always be successful. It is a worrying world at the moment. It is a frightening place and there are lots of dangerous things happening. If we look at the questions of oil and gas, it is not just that the costs have gone up. There are all the uncertainties of managing a country and concern about other actors, including some of our allies or former allies who do not obey the rules any more. Many of our businesses and, as I say, our Government have often become risk averse. One thing surprised me, though.

The area in which I saw the most venturesomeness and success was one that I did not really think of as part of business and trade: the development of English language higher education. There is a huge appetite for this among young people in that region, and a preparedness on the part of our own universities to get out there, develop campuses and engage with universities there. I thought to myself, “Well, this is very interesting. I wonder why that happens”. Then I thought, “Maybe it’s the fact that if you’re going to be a serious academic and scientist now, you need to be prepared to go to conferences and meet others who are doing scientific work”. You would need to be prepared to engage in research across countries and borders, and, because that is part of the natural thing, you then meet with people who you start to work with. You develop a relationship with them, so some of our academics and universities are doing more and being more outgoing and courageous. They are prepared to take risks, rather than having the risk aversion that I see—not always, but often—in business and in government.

We have to face the realities, which have changed and are very difficult for us. There were things that we used to think. The noble Lord, Lord Lilley, talked about the way he had changed his perspective on things. It used to be thought that if countries could be brought to a liberal economic approach, liberal democracy in politics would ultimately follow. China is the great end to that notion. Then there was the notion that if you have military power, you will win wars. That used to be the case, but the United States did not do so well in Korea or Vietnam, or Afghanistan or Iraq, or Libya or Syria, or now in Iran. Military power can enable you to destroy things and kill people, but it does not create democracy. It can just lay waste and leave a shambles.

We thought of Europe as the centre of civilisation in the past, and that it would be for the future. But there are older civilisations, and increasingly impressive economic and scientific advancement, to the east, where we have tended not to look in the past. While we still have strengths, which are significant and recognised, we are not as rich, powerful or significant as we were, while other countries are becoming more wealthy and powerful.

Another illusion that is often around is that you can continue to cut the workforce and still have expansion. As I look at the cutting of the workforce in DBT and FCDO, I cannot see how there will be anything other than retrenchment and retraction. I ask the Government to think again about some of those cuts if we really are to achieve what they want to achieve.

We talk things up with endless superlatives. There is a danger of overplaying our hand when we talk about being world-beating and world-leading in everything we do, when we are not. Propaganda is particularly dangerous when you inhale; one of the problems is that we have started to believe some of these things that we tell. It is not that we have no world-beating things, but they are not in many of the places that we speak of. There is another problem: not only do we sometimes believe it, but our people believe it. If you tell your population that they are world-beating and leading in everything, they expect you to be able to pay for all the kinds of services that they want: for welfare services, for the National Health Service and for defence, which we need. That is playing a story to them which is not true, and you have to be very careful about that kind of thing.

I was talking to a nationalist friend from Northern Ireland and she said, “I’ve suddenly realised that I’ve made a big mistake. When I go down to Dublin, I tell them about how terrible things are in the north. I’ve suddenly realised that if I persuade them that it’s terrible, why on earth would they want to take it on? I need to go down and tell them that there are problems but that we’re able to do something about those, so please work with us on that”. We have to be careful about the kind of things we say, because people sometimes believe us, and then we are in real trouble because that is not really what we want them to do.

At the same time, we are neglecting our soft power by cutting back on the BBC, the British Council and our Diplomatic Service, as I already said, while neglecting not so much hard power as our capacity to defend ourselves. The noble Lord, Lord Robertson, will undoubtedly say something about this, because he has said a lot publicly, and quite rightly so. We are not now able to defend ourselves. We told ourselves and our people for years that the world would be more peaceful. We had a world-class military machine and, anyway, we could depend on the United States to defend us. None of these things is true any more. The world has changed, which means that we must change our way of approaching it.

Leaving the EU did not bring the benefits we were promised, but simply reversing Brexit without recognising that we have changed—and that Europe and the world have changed—will not solve the problems either. Prime Minister Mark Carney has made it clear that the world is a different place. We need to listen to his injunction that middle powers, of which we are now one, build a future based more on a variable geometry of workable relationships, rather than some of the institutional structures that are vulnerable to the vetoes of the mighty. We need to build relationships more than institutions and structures. That would be my appeal: that we address the risk aversion in business and government; that we face the realities of the world as it is now, not as it was in the past, or as we wish it was; and that we build relationships in this changing and challenging world, not just conduct transactions.

Palestine Statehood (Recognition) Bill [HL]

Lord Alderdice Excerpts

2nd reading
Friday 14th March 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Alderdice (LD)]

My Lords, my noble friend Lady Northover has done this House and the Government a great service by raising the possibility in her Bill of redressing a profound injustice with which we as a country have colluded for decades.

The implementation of UN Resolution 181, agreed almost 80 years ago in 1947, has been obstructed. The State of Israel came into being, but neither the state of Palestine nor the special status of Jerusalem have emerged. Has the wish for a Palestinian state gone away? Well, the Jewish wish for a state survived for around 2,000 years, so why do they imagine that the Palestinian wish for a state will disappear? As the noble Lord, Lord Grocott, and some others, have said, the global trajectory is increasingly towards support for Palestine and loss of support for Israel’s position and indeed for countries such as the United States and the United Kingdom, whose stand is damaging their international reputation.

Those who oppose recognition criticise the other side, quoting the very real and horrible facts of terrorist outrages, quoting legal objections and obstacles, giving special regard to one side in the conflict, blaming the other and giving a veto to a Government who have no intention of producing a peaceful outcome. I listen to this and I have heard it before. I heard it in Northern Ireland—precisely the same voices and sentiments from unionists who had governed Northern Ireland for 50 years. It is often the same people in the same parties who are saying the same things that they said about Northern Ireland, and indeed, in some cases, South Africa. Eventually, the British Government stopped accepting a veto on progress and indicated that they wanted to see a change. Without that change of attitude, there would have been no peace process, no end to the terrorism and no Good Friday agreement.

I say to the Minister that those who reject this Bill and the other opportunities that are offered will find that history will judge them harshly. I have seen it; I remember speaking with a friend in South Africa who said, “The Broederbond will never allow it”; I grew up in a part of the United Kingdom where it seemed clear that the Orange Order and those who supported it would never allow a pluralist Government and a change of approach. But it came, and if there is one message of the last few weeks, it is that when the dam bursts, it does not burst gradually.