Asked by: Alex Brewer (Liberal Democrat - North East Hampshire)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, whether his Department (a) monitors and (b) regulates the use of AI in apps aimed at children and teenagers.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Online Safety Act places new duties on both user-to-user and search services. The strongest protections in the Act are for children, who will be protected from both illegal content, and legal content which is nonetheless harmful to children (including content which is AI generated) Ofcom has set out steps providers can take to fulfil their child safety duties, which will be in force in the Summer.
The vast majority of AI systems should be regulated at the point of use, and the UK’s existing expert regulators are best placed to do this. We remain committed to introducing targeted rules on companies developing the most powerful AI models to ensure we can realise the benefits of these systems safely.