(5 years, 8 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, there was no difficulty in finding a Minister in this House: answering the noble Lord’s very sensible Question was pinned on me at a very early stage. The point about the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation, which will publish its interim report on algorithms in the summer—relatively soon—is that it will look across the whole area and highlight what should be done in regulation terms. It will be one of the things that we expect the centre to look at, so the genuine concerns raised by the noble Lord can be considered at by this forward-looking body.
Would my noble friend explain what an algorithm is? Should I be concerned about it?
My Lords, I am not an expert, but I am sure that the noble Lord can go back to his school days and remember from his study of Greek that Euclid was producing algorithms in 300 BC —he will remember that this was for finding the greatest common divisor of two numbers. Essentially, an algorithm is a set of rules that precisely defines a sequence of operations. Today, they are used mainly by computers for calculations, machine learning and artificial intelligence.
(6 years, 10 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, I am not really allowed to do this, but I would like to express my appreciation to the noble Baroness, Lady Finlay, for her education on Amendments 209 and 210. Fortunately, I have not had to read them out.
Clause 195: Commencement
(6 years, 11 months ago)
Lords ChamberMy Lords, Amendment 50 having been agreed, I cannot call Amendments 51 and 52 due to pre-emption.
Amendment 53