Artificial Intelligence: Regulation

Lord Bassam of Brighton Excerpts

Monday 4th December 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank my noble friend for that question on the important area of AI usage in defence. As she will recall, AI in defence is principally conducted within the remit of the Ministry of Defence itself. My role has very little oversight of that, but I will take steps with government colleagues to confirm an answer for my noble friend.

[Lord Bassam of Brighton (Lab)]

My Lords, the Minister referred earlier to new risks. Sadly, the rapid development of AI has given rise to deepfake video and audio of political leaders, most recently the London Mayor, Sadiq Khan. We debated such issues during the passage of the Online Safety Act, but many were left feeling that the challenges that AI poses to our democratic processes were not sufficiently addressed. With a general election on the horizon who knows when, what steps are the Minister and his ministerial colleagues taking to protect our proud democratic traditions from bad actors and their exploitation of these new technologies? This is urgent.

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for raising this; it is extremely urgent. In my view, few things could be more catastrophic than the loss of faith in our electoral process. In addition to the protections that will be in place through the Online Safety Act, the Government have set up the Defending Democracy Taskforce under the chairmanship of the Minister for Security, with a range of ministerial and official activities around it. That task force will engage closely, both nationally, with Parliament and other groups and stakeholders, and internationally, to learn from allies who are also facing elections over the same period.