Artificial Intelligence: Public Services

Debate between Lord Vallance of Balham and Baroness Bull

Tuesday 6th May 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

Once again, that is a very important question. The noble Baroness is absolutely right. It is as true for AI as it is for other systems: rubbish in, rubbish out. Well-curated, properly understood datasets are crucial. It is one of the reasons that where there are well-documented, well-curated datasets that can be used to train models for government purposes, we will be pursuing those. We will use the AI assurance mechanism that I discussed previously to try to make sure that we identify where there are systems that carry risks such as the one the noble Baroness raises.

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister will know that the US and China are currently responsible for the 80% of the world’s largest AI models. Does he agree that in an increasingly unstable geopolitical environment, and with clear evidence of diversions on values, Europe’s dependency could quickly become a vulnerability, in terms of not just public services but the upholding of our democratic values? Given that the EU and UK have complementary strengths and values in common, will he persuade the Government to pursue, with the EU, a shared attempt to close the competitive gap? Might this be on the agenda at the EU-UK summit in May, given that the trade and co-operation agreement is totally silent on AI?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

We are working closely with our friends in Europe on AI, both at the safety and security level through the AI Security Institute and more broadly. We have a bilateral meeting with France coming up in July, where this will be discussed. There is a need for all of us to think about which models we want to rely on and become dependent on and, indeed, where models can be made that are not general-purpose, wide, generative models but narrower models that can answer the questions we need to answer. Not everything comes down to broad, generative AI.

Online Safety

Debate between Lord Vallance of Balham and Baroness Bull

Thursday 16th January 2025 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Bull (CB)]

My Lords, the Minister quite rightly mentioned children in his initial Answer, and we all want to protect children primarily, but will he also recognise the harm that can be done to vulnerable adults? I think particularly of those with addiction problems, eating disorders and people with learning disabilities, who are not as safe online as we are. Can he say whether the Government have made an assessment of the different types of harms that are on these smaller sites that fall outside the regulations? Have they broken down this type of harm by distinct categories and will they make this information available?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The so-called Small but Risky task force that was set up in response to an exchange of letters between the Secretary of State and the CEO of Ofcom is undertaking a review of all the risks of these small units. I do not know the detail of whether it has broken it down into the categories suggested by the noble Baroness but I think that is an extremely good idea and I hope it will do it, because it is an important activity.