Political Influence: Artificial Intelligence

Lord Tyler Excerpts

Tuesday 4th September 2018 Lords Chamber

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

We are waiting for the ICO’s report. I think the noble Lord would agree that it is wrong to take action before the independent organisation that is looking into it has reported.

[Lord Tyler (LD)]

My Lords, should we not at least be prepared to do something about this? Does the Minister not recognise that these challenges to which reference has been made are particularly relevant to a referendum campaign, as we have learned to our cost? Given that there is obviously now no potential majority in the House of Commons for any Brexit outcome of any sort, there is an increasing likelihood of the necessity of going back to the people and having a people’s vote. What steps should or can now be taken at least to look at the recommendations of the Independent Commission on Referendums, which goes into some detail on these issues, and the recommendations of the Electoral Commission so that we can have some legislation in place if and when we have another vote?

[Lord Ashton of Hyde]

I agree with the noble Lord that we should be prepared to deal with these issues. That is why we are looking at better research to better understand the problem. We are engaging with the tech sector and the social media platforms to do something about these issues and developing policies on education, tech and regulation. We are also working on strategic communications to deal with this disinformation and setting up, as noble Lords will know, the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation to look at some of these very difficult ethical problems surrounding information. We have to remember that disinformation per se is not illegal and we still want a society where we can have freedom of expression as much as possible.