Ethics and Artificial Intelligence

Margot James Excerpts

Wednesday 17th January 2018 Westminster Hall

[The Minister of State, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport (Margot James)]

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Dame Cheryl. I congratulate the hon. Member for East Dunbartonshire (Jo Swinson) on securing this important debate and on her fascinating and well-argued speech. As she kindly pointed out, I am new to the position of Minister for digital and creative industries. She will know from her ministerial experience that there is a great deal to absorb in any new brief, and I thank her for this opportunity to get involved and absorbed in the ethical considerations of artificial intelligence so early in my new role.

We understand the disruptive potential of transformative technologies, and we stand ready for the adoption of AI, which is going on around us and is important to the future of our industrial strategy. In their review of AI and the industrial strategy, Dame Wendy Hall and Jérôme Pesenti identified a range of opportunities for the UK to build and grow its AI capacity. The forthcoming AI sector deal will take forward their key recommendations about skills and data, and a wider AI grand challenge will keep the UK at the forefront of AI technology and the wider data revolution. Those ambitions will be underpinned by a new Government office for AI. We are building the capacity to address the issues that accompany these technological advancements: issues of trust, ethics and governance; effective take-up by business and consumers; and the transition of skills and labour requirements.

Regarding trust, AI already delivers a wide range of benefits, from healthcare to logistics, biodiversity and business, but we are fully aware that AI brings new challenges, as the hon. Lady mentioned, in privacy, accountability and transparency as well as the important issue of bias, on which she shared a number of concerning examples with the House.

The uses of data in AI and machine learning are developing in valuable but potentially unsettling ways, because of the pace of adoption, as the hon. Lady outlined. We have different concerns and tolerances about trust and fairness depending on the application of AI, varying, for instance, between retail, finance and medicine. We will need to consider specific answers to those challenges in the different sectors if we are to foster the necessary level of trust. Confidence and trust are essential to driving adoption and innovation.

We must ensure that these new technologies work for the benefit of everyone: citizens, businesses and wider society. We are therefore integrating strong privacy protections and accountability into how automated decisions affect users. A strong, effective regulatory regime is therefore vital. In the UK we already benefit from the Information Commissioner’s Office, a well-respected independent body tasked with protecting personal data. Important decisions on everything from autonomous cars to medical diagnosis and decisions on finance and sentencing—and indeed applications to defence—cannot be delegated solely to algorithms. Human judgment and oversight remain essential.

[Lee Rowley]

I completely accept the principle that strong regulation is required for data, and it is important that organisations such as the ICO lead that—even if I have some concerns about some of what has come out on the general data protection regulation in recent months. Is it not the responsibility of all of us here, the ICO, Ministers and wider civic society to start discussing privacy more over the long term? We have probably got to have a cultural discussion about privacy, because we have ownership of data, but to accrue the benefits that come from some automation and artificial intelligence we must also be willing to give over some elements of that data for the wider good.

[Margot James]

My hon. Friend touches on some important considerations. There has been a debate in healthcare on how much should be private and how much should be anonymised and shared for the general good, as he outlines. I agree that that discussion needs to involve citizens, business, policy makers and technology specialists.

We will introduce a digital charter, which will underpin the policies and actions needed to drive innovation and growth while making the UK the safest and fairest place to be online. A key pillar of the charter will be the centre for data ethics and innovation, which will look ahead to advise Government and regulators on the best means of stewarding ethical, safe and innovative uses of AI and all data, not just personal data. It will be for the chair of the centre to decide how they should engage with their stakeholders and build a wider discussion, as my hon. Friend suggested is necessary. We expect that they will want to engage with academia, industry, civil society and indeed the wider public to build the future frameworks in which AI technology can thrive and innovate safely.

We may find the solutions to many AI challenges in particular sectors by making sure that, with the right tools, application of the existing rules can keep up, rather than requiring completely new rules just for AI. We all need to identify and understand the ethical and governance challenges posed by uses of such a new data source and decision-making process, now and in the future. We must then determine how best to identify appropriate rules, establish new norms and evolve policy and regulations.

When it comes to AI take-up and adoption, we need senior decision makers in business and the public sector first to understand and then discuss the opportunities and implications of AI. We want to see high-skill, well-paid jobs created, but we also want the benefits of AI, as a group of new general-purpose technologies, to be felt across the whole economy and by citizens in their private lives. The Government are therefore working closely with industry towards that end. As I said earlier, we will establish a new AI council to act as a leadership body and, in partnership with Government, champion adoption across the whole economy. Further support will come from Tech Nation as it establishes a national network of hubs to support such growth.

A highly skilled and diverse workforce is critical to growing AI in the UK. We therefore support the tech talent charter initiative to gain commitment to greater workforce diversity. The hon. Lady explained well in her speech why diversity in the tech workforce is important to the ethical considerations we are debating. As we expand our base of world-class AI experts by investing in 200 new AI PhDs and AI fellowships through the Alan Turing Institute, we will still need to attract the best and brightest people from around the world, so we have doubled the amount of exceptional talent visas to 2,000. I will take the point about the need for diversity when it comes to reviewing such applications. All of that will ensure that UK businesses have a workforce ready to shape the coming opportunities.

With regard to transition, we will see strong adaptation in our labour markets, where our aim should be lifelong learning opportunities to help people adapt to the changing pace of technology, which will bring new jobs and productivity gains. We must hope that those will increase employment. We know that some jobs may be displaced, and often for good reasons: dangerous, repetitive or tedious parts of work can now be carried out more quickly, accurately and safely by machines. None the less, human judgment and creativity will still be required to design and manage them.

[Luke Graham]

On employment, may I impress on the Minister that in that disruption, the Government should be there to help some of those workers pushed out of employment to retrain and find a new place and role in the economy, keeping up with the pace of technology as it develops?

[Margot James]

I heartily agree with my hon. Friend. He will be pleased to know that the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy—my former Department—is working closely with Matthew Taylor to consult on all of his recommendations. The Secretary of State has taken personal responsibility for improving the quality of work. Work should be good and rewarding.

A study from last year suggests that digital technologies including AI can create a net total of 80,000 new jobs annually for a country such as the UK. We want people to be able to capitalise on those opportunities, as my hon. Friend suggested. We already have a resilient and diverse labour market, which has adapted well to automation, creating more, higher paying jobs at low risk of automation. However, as the workplace continues to change, people must be equipped to adapt to it easily. Many roles, rather being directly replaced, will evolve to incorporate new technologies.

[Jo Swinson]

The Minister has mentioned the centre for data ethics. Can she update us on when it is likely to be up and running, what the timetable is for recruiting the chair and so on? It would be helpful to know when we can expect that.

[Margot James]

We want to proceed at pace, because it is an important part of our programme of dealing with the ethics of this issue. We plan to consult on the plans for a permanent centre in the next few months, and I will welcome the hon. Lady’s input.

Undeniably, substantial changes lie ahead. Therefore, in terms of enabling people to reskill and take advantage of the changes and opportunities in the workplace, a national retraining scheme will help people. We also have plans to upskill 8,000 computer science teachers and work with industry to set up a new national centre for computing education, with a brief to encourage more girls to take advantage of the new technologies in their learning.

Substantial changes lie ahead and, as we push these new technologies, we will also strive to keep people and businesses sufficiently skilled, adaptable and assured. The measures are in place, and I have taken heart from the hon. Lady’s speech about the importance of these ethical considerations. I assure her that they will be uppermost in our minds as we develop policy.

Question put and agreed to.