Artificial Intelligence: Regulation

Lord Bishop of Oxford Excerpts

Monday 10th February 2025 Lords Chamber

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

The noble Lord may find that not all rights holders have the same views, so I do not think it is possible to give the assurance he asked for, but I am very clear that we need a workable solution, and that means for creators as well as for access.

[The Lord Bishop of Oxford]

My Lords, according to the Government’s own recent survey, 43% of the public trust that the impact of AI will be positive, but 33% believe it will be negative. Given this very narrow gap and the critical importance of building trust in embracing new technologies, what specific steps are the Government planning to take to improve that public trust as they embed AI in the nation’s most trusted institutions, not least in the NHS?

[Lord Vallance of Balham (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for that important question. Trust is key to all this, and it is why we are committed to maintaining high standards of data protection in whichever context the AI system is deployed. The right reverend Prelate is quite right to raise the question of the NHS, where already AI is being used to read scans, to improve performance in terms of missed appointments and to advance pathology services, many of which are narrow AI uses which are extremely important.