Artificial Intelligence: Impact on Human Relationships and Society

Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay Excerpts

Friday 5th June 2026 Lords Chamber

[Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Con)]

My Lords, I add my voice in appreciation to the most reverend Primate, not just for this excellent and timely debate but for her service as our archbishop. Stepping into a role that stretches back more than 1,400 years and has been held by more than a dozen saints must feel like an awesome responsibility. I hope she knows that she does so with the prayers and good wishes of so many.

Hers is not the only role in public life which must feel at times an almost impossible job. The same might be said of our new director-general of the BBC, the latest Cabinet Secretary or, dare I say it, the Prime Minister. The public square in which they work is larger and louder than ever before, and the conversation about their work faster and less forgiving. In large part, that is because of technological changes like the ones we have been debating today. When I started working in politics, we were still getting used to the era of rolling news—how slow and tranquil that seems. In the age of scrolling news, there is less time for thought, for nuance and for fallibility. How fortunate, then, that our spiritual leaders are carving out time for debates such as this.

Many noble Lords have mentioned the encyclical recently published by Pope Leo, not the first pontiff, I should note, to be nobbled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. His letter commemorates the 135th anniversary of the last Pope Leo’s encyclical about the impact of the Industrial Revolution. In doing so, it acknowledges that the technology emerging today is here to stay, whether we like it or not. The question is how we respond and how we use it. The most reverend Primate showed a greater realism about this than her predecessors did at the advent of the printing press. When William Tyndale used that to smuggle his vernacular translations of the Bible into this country, he was condemned as a heretic by Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, then strangled and burned at the stake.

As this archbishop has recognised, we can no more stop AI than we could stop people reading the Bible in English. What matters are the choices we make in terms of design and safeguards, and our regulations are already wanting. Bad decisions will be hard to reverse. Aza Raskin, the man who invented infinite scrolling, now says that he regrets it, that what was meant to help people was instead damaging them. My noble friend Lady Owen and others have highlighted AI design features which are already being used for malicious ends. We must not make the same mistakes again.

I am just back from what used to be called the new world. While I was in Miami, I saw some of the exciting possibilities of AI: taking a taxi ride in a driverless car; watching self-propelling wheelchairs ferry people through the airport; and robot cars delivering takeaways. These things are coming to the streets of this country soon, and decisions about regulating them are coming to this House at a time when we cannot even seem to regulate e-bikes and scooters.

As a former Arts Minister, noble Lords will not be surprised that I want to dwell on what the most reverend Primate called the things that make us unique as humans: art, literature, music, and the protection of that human creativity. I do not quite have the optimism of my noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston, though I do look forward to an age when we have more artisans and fewer lawyers, and more time to enjoy the finer things in life. But I want to ensure that we protect the rights of the creators who bring us that pleasure.

Many of them would agree with the archbishop that AI can enhance their creativity. In recent days, Martin Scorsese has talked with excitement about the possibility for filmmakers, but Ian McEwan has warned that it is harder to write novels in the mindless age of the mobile phone. I think Rosamund Pike deserves another Olivier award for her monologue upbraiding the theatregoer who sat through her tour de force in “Inter Alia” scrolling on their phone.

The most reverend Primate highlighted the paradox that the explosion of text-based media has been accompanied by a decline in literacy. I agree with my noble friend Lord Waldegrave of North Hill that we should be investing in our humanities departments, strengthening our powers of critical thinking in the face of this artificial intelligence.

The renewal of the BBC’s royal charter needs to take these challenges into account to strengthen that important corporation. The Government should make use of the digital markets Act to protect trusted and independent journalism from AI summaries. As the News Media Association says, this is

“choking the traffic that keeps newsrooms alive”.

With all tools, it is up to the user to choose whether to use them for good or ill. At the church where I worship, St Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, our pioneering rector is using AI and social media to good effect. When the most reverend Primate last visited us in her former role as Bishop of London, she baptised and confirmed 29 new members of the Church in a congregation that has more than doubled since the pandemic. Perhaps it is not the medium that matters, but the message—a consoling thought perhaps for this debate, as well as for the 106th Archbishop charged with sharing a story already more than 2,000 years old, but still as important as when it was first heard.