AI: International Co-operation
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(6 days, 18 hours ago)
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Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
We are indeed co-operating with many like-minded allies and countries —for example, the G7 and the OECD, to which the noble Lord referred—on taking forward the AI principles. Those agreed standards are vital for the governance and the effective adoption of AI in all countries. As I mentioned in reference to the question from the noble Earl, we are not a member of the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization. I did review its membership before answering this Question, so I am aware of that. This is a global technology; it is providing opportunities and threats globally. It is very important that, in respect of the UK, we provide advice to our companies and the public sector, so that we can be prepared both for the risks and the opportunities.
Captain of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms and Chief Whip (Lord Kennedy of Southwark) (Lab Co-op)
My Lords, we will hear from the Labour and then the Conservative Benches.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I hope we will raise our sights above some of our traditional disputes. The threat we face is a worldwide one, as is recognised with what happened with the attack on Hugging Face by OpenAI. This is truly a threat to the whole world, regardless of where we come from politically, and we must therefore look to get the maximum co-operation, on a worldwide basis, that we can secure. Could we, as a starter, start to write out what principles and what guidance we should seek to put into AI that should be minimum standards for a world application?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
As I mentioned, the Government co-operate with others in numerous multilateral forums. We have taken forward the OECD principles in many of these and they include some of aspects to which my noble friend referred. We will continue to talk to allies about all these aspects. On risks, it is important to emphasise that we are both providing advice to companies on what measures they can take to improve their resilience and taking new powers, through the Cyber Security and Resilience (Network and Information Systems) Bill, to protect our essential services from attacks, wherever they emanate from.
Artificial Intelligence: Global Governance
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(1 month ago)
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Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
The right reverend Prelate is right to highlight the importance of applying our values and laws, whether the content is generated by AI or by other actors. In the UK, the Online Safety Act takes that approach, whether content is developed by AI or elsewhere. It is through these kinds of dialogues, including with the UN, that we will share our best practice, so we can have standards globally that are based on the approach we are taking here in the UK.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, is it not a fact that, if we are to secure international agreements, we are dependent on the Chinese being willing to enter into them, and in particular our close friends the Americans, who are showing a preference not for international regulation but to lead the world, have competitiveness and be in charge? In those circumstances, I welcome what the Minister was saying about UK sovereignty. Could she define it a bit more precisely? Are we going to establish an independent sovereign UK AI which would give us greater power than we have at the moment?
Baroness Lloyd of Effra (Lab)
Our sovereignty strategy includes many elements, such as developing AI growth zones, supporting the expansion of compute, and the sovereign AI fund, which is focused on five priority areas. We are supporting the building of a series of non-language frontier models, for example Ineffable. Also, as language models develop, we are seeing how the next era of them could be different. Today, there was an announcement of a further investment in that area from UKRI.
Open Artificial Intelligence Service
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(10 months, 3 weeks ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask His Majesty’s Government whether they will explore the possibility of establishing an entity to provide a sovereign open artificial intelligence service on a public-private partnership basis with shares open to British citizens.
The Minister of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Lord Vallance of Balham) (Lab)
The Government are committed to building sovereign AI capabilities spanning hardware, software and data, and they have established a sovereign AI unit. This is backed by up to £500 million. The unit will advance UK strategic interests through supporting promising companies. We recently published the compute road map, setting out plans to build cutting-edge, secure and sustainable AI infrastructure, and of course there is the National Data Library. We will explore novel commercial structures, such as public/private partnerships, as part of that delivery model.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Minister for the conversations he has had with me and for the report he has just given. While we research, others, like the Indians, already understand the sovereignty question. They are now finding ways of funding and launching their own national AI systems, scheduled probably for next year. I know the noble Lord, Lord Clement-Jones, has been at meetings where the Treasury, responsible for AI developments, has indicated surprise that there is pressure for a national sovereign movement. Can we make sure that the Treasury is not taking a long, slow view on this? Can we also make sure that we are exploring all the opportunities open to us to bring more people into creating public/private partnerships in a new way, quite unlike what we have done before, in order to ensure that parents, particularly, can see that the UK is developing an AI system for their children in which they can place their trust?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
A lot is going on. What is being considered is investment in companies, but things that have happened include the formation of a new AI computer infrastructure—Isambard-AI went live this summer. The AI Security Institute is determined to make sure that we have the ability to look at risks of future models, and of course there is the National Data Library. So, there is a lot in train and a lot of sovereign capability is being built. The next phase is to make sure that we have investment for companies that are developing the latest models in the UK.
Artificial Intelligence: Public Services
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(1 year, 2 months ago)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe
To ask His Majesty’s Government what plans they have to use artificial intelligence to improve public services.
The Minister of State, Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (Lord Vallance of Balham) (Lab)
Public services are of course central to the AI Opportunities Action Plan, which outlines how we will improve these services to drive growth. We have announced £42 million for three frontier AI exemplars, driving departments to use AI to boost productivity and citizen experience. We are adopting a flexible “scan, pilot, scale” approach to AI adoption in public services and, just this week, the NHS published guidance on ambient voice technologies, which can transcribe patient-clinician conversations and more.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, I am grateful to my noble friend the Minister for his reply. Could we bring this a little nearer to home? Perhaps he might say what we can do, if there is the need for it, to improve our performance and the efficiency and effectiveness of both Houses of Parliament. If so, what plans do we have to seek those objectives?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I thank the noble Lord. It is in the Government’s interest to help here as much as we can. However, as the noble Lord will know, that is a parliamentary accountability, not a government one. The Parliamentary Digital Service has issued guidance for Members and their staff on the use of AI, which is going to be updated regularly as required—and, of course, as the understanding around AI improves. Seminars on how to use generative AI effectively are available to all Members and their staff, and the Parliamentary Digital Service is looking at opportunities to apply AI safely to support the work of Members in both Houses.
Artificial Intelligence: Emissions
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(1 year, 3 months ago)
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Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
The question of renewable energy is of course an important one. Last year, 50% of the energy was provided by renewables, about 30% from gas and the rest from nuclear and other sources, and, as I said, the consumption of energy by AI and data centres will not rise to about more than about 10% of that under current projections. It is the case that many places across the UK have expressed an interest in becoming an AI growth zone. It is also the case that many data centre providers are interested in coming to the UK, so there is a good chance of getting a large number of data centres here in the UK.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
My Lords, is the Minister aware that, contrary to the previous question, AI itself is concerned about the amount of electricity it is using and that, if questioned, it has a long list of possible solutions to try to find a way through and to reduce the amount of electricity that it is using? Is it not a fact that, if we spend a little bit more time getting a little closer to the Chinese, we might find ways in which we can save even more electricity in this area?
Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)
I think it is the case that AI is going to be very important in reducing energy consumption across a number of industries. Estimates suggest that, even factoring in the increased amount of energy consumed by data centres and AI, the reductions in use as a result of applying AI to a number of industries and elsewhere could outweigh that increase. So this is a complex picture, where AI itself will be part of the solution.
Medical Research Charities
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts(3 years, 1 month ago)
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Viscount Camrose (Con)
Yes, indeed, I will be very happy to take that back. As I say, for the Government, the preferred outcome of the negotiations is to associate with Horizon on fair and appropriate terms.
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)
In response to the question from my noble friend, the Minister was reasonably confident that we would move forward, but subject to “fair and appropriate terms”. Would he care to define to the House a little more clearly what those are?
Viscount Camrose (Con)
At the risk of testing the House’s patience, I cannot describe what our negotiating goals are for fear of prejudicing the outcome of the negotiations.