Department for Work and Pensions: AI

Lord Harris of Haringey Excerpts

Tuesday 5th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I will need to write to the noble Lord with those specific figures.

[Lord Harris of Haringey (Lab)]

The Minister has said repeatedly that he wants the public to have trust in the use of AI in the system. Can he therefore tell us what proportion of cases where AI has been used are subsequently checked by a human? Will he publish the results of that analysis to show whether the AI decisions are the same as human decisions, or perhaps better, or worse?

[Viscount Younger of Leckie (Con)]

I can give the noble Lord some reassurance on the processes that we have in place. AI is an evolving, iterative process and it is important to highlight the fact that we have a test- and-learn approach. We must proceed with extreme caution in what we are doing. Test-and-learn means that we need to get to a point where we are assured that this will work and that nobody will be affected detrimentally. Then we can accelerate our programmes.