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, what steps his Department is taking to (a) understand and (b) help tackle the threats posed by artificial intelligence to young people through social media platforms.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
Protecting children is at the heart of the Online Safety Act.
The Act’s duties apply to AI generated content in the same way as to ‘real’ content - AI generated content is regulated where it is shared on an in-scope service and is either illegal content or content which is harmful to children. In-scope services will be required to assess the risk of harm to users from this content and implement measures to manage and mitigate this risk.
Government is clear that we will not hesitate to build on the Act where necessary when it comes to keeping children safe.
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.