Artificial Intelligence: Impact on Human Relationships and Society

Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe Excerpts

Friday 5th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Lab)]

I too am most grateful to the most reverend Primate for selecting this important topic, for her wide-ranging and stimulating speech and for proposing the three questions that we should address. On her third, the truth, it is worth remembering that there was life on this planet before humanity. Notwithstanding our desire that humanity should not be replaced or surpassed, it could be, if it is God's will.

We should pay particular attention to the fact that there are engineers who are seeking to implant into the AI technology itself, as it is developing, those emotions, feelings and characteristics of human beings that the noble Lord, Lord Ahmad, referred to. It is not going to be easy to stop this, slow it or reverse it, but of course we should try. At a minimum, we should endeavour to guide the changes—we should at least be trying to get wisdom and goodness into AI.

We should make greater efforts to be in control of our destiny. We rely too much on the USA’s big tech companies. I have long been an advocate of seeking to create our own UK sovereign AI entity on not dissimilar lines to what was mentioned, like the way we created the BBC in the 1930s. The first Oral Question we had this week was on this topic. In particular, my colleague, the noble Baroness, Lady Berger, pointed out that:

“France, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada and Ukraine are all investing in”—[Official Report, 1/6/26; col. 628.]


this. She overlooked to mention that India is launching its own and will be, I believe, able to compete with China and the big American tech companies. Perhaps, if we cannot do it ourselves, we at least ought to be thinking of trying to establish a partnership with it. But before that, why is the UK not investing in its own model? That is what I ask the Minister.

The noble Lord, Lord Walney, earlier this week pressed a similar question. My noble friend the Minister replied that she could not give a definitive opinion. I trust that she has taken some further soundings since we had that debate earlier in the week. We also had a very important debate yesterday in the moses Room, on governance and regulation. I look forward to her responding, I hope positively, to the desire which has been expressed by an increasing number that, notwithstanding the cost, we should seek to have greater independence in this field.

We can look to try to develop a public/private partnership model, which would be wider than the ones that we have used in the past, with more people involved with the public; in particular, we should extend the private over a wider area. We should try to get parents and other people who are keen to see a UK sovereign AI entity operating to invest into it. I pose the question to the most reverend Primate of whether the Church itself might consider investing in a UK AI entity, so that we have control over the machine and over what our children should be encountering rather than leaving it to others to do so.

Similarly, given that the Pope has made such an important intervention, can we look forward to the Churches coming together, not just within the Christian faith but over the broader faith throughout the world, so that we can see a wider response taking place? That is what is going to be needed: a response in the way that we have endeavoured to do with climate change. Regrettably, somebody always breaks ranks. This is the problem that we encounter because of our humanity. But we must try. We must have faith, and we must look to see that there is a better world before us, notwithstanding the challenges which come on a daily basis from new technology.