Artificial Intelligence

Paul Scully Excerpts

Thursday 29th June 2023 Commons Chamber

[The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology (Paul Scully)]

I start by conveying my appreciation to my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness (Matt Warman) for securing today’s debate and for speaking so powerfully in opening what has been on the whole—until the word soup of the hon. Member for Pontypridd (Alex Davies-Jones), which I will cover in a second—a thoughtful debate about this important and complex topic.

We have had some considered speeches, and I will touch on some of those. We heard from the Chairman of the Business and Trade Committee, the hon. Member for Bristol North West (Darren Jones), about the risk to workers. My right hon. Friend the Member for Tunbridge Wells (Greg Clark) spoke about how we have to choose our words carefully and keep cool heads in regulation, and that goes to the heart of what we are talking about today. The hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) talked about how, instead of constraining the technology, the Government are letting it off the leash, and I do not think that is right. When we talk about the AI White Paper, it is the flexibility that keeps it up to date, rather than it being out of date.

We heard from my hon. Friends the Members for Stoke-on-Trent Central (Jo Gideon) and for Aberconwy (Robin Millar), and the hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire (John Nicolson) talked about the gigs he gets to go to. In the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, we have the sharp focus to look at AI and the digital skills that the hon. Member for Pontypridd was talking about. Six months ago, when I was in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, I had to leave a digital economy council meeting to go to a dinner with Dell. When I explained that, they said, “You’re going to dinner with Adele?” I said, “No, it isn’t. It is just Dell, unfortunately.” We now have that sharp focus to address the AI White Paper.

First, let me talk about the fact that AI is fast becoming part of our daily lives. It is in our phones, our cars, our offices and our workplaces. The explosion in the use of AI tools such as DALL-E, Midjourney, ChatGPT and Bard shows that we are on the cusp of a new era of artificial intelligence. As my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness rightly asserted, it has the potential to bring enormous benefits to our society, and we must always remember that. We have to be aware of the risks and manage them carefully on an international basis, which is summed up by the global summit that the Prime Minister is hosting here this autumn, but we must always look to the opportunities, too, and how AI will change the world. That includes in the NHS, where the use of automated lip readers such as Liopa are bringing a voice to the voiceless by improving treatments for patients who cannot speak, and where risk prediction tools, such as the Scottish Patients at Risk of Readmission and Admission tool, or SPARRA, can provide GPs in Scotland with monthly risk scores for patients and predict the likelihood of their being admitted to hospital.

AI can also change our economy, driving greater consumer choice, efficiencies and productivity. One only has to look at AI’s impact through the widespread use of virtual assistants such as Siri, Cortana, Google Assistant and Alexa to see how AI is helping consumers to manage their daily lives more efficiently.

However, there are unique risks, too, so it is right that Governments around the world play their part in ensuring that this technology is developed and applied in a safe, transparent way. In the UK, the Government have long recognised the transformative potential of this technology, and we have sought to be ahead of the curve. With respect, I say to the hon. Member for Pontypridd that since 2014 we have invested £2.5 billion in building a thriving AI ecosystem; we are recognised as having the third biggest AI ecosystem in the world after America and China.

The AI sector deal that we announced back in 2018 was followed by our national AI strategy in 2021. That set out our 10-year vision for ensuring that the UK remains at the forefront of the AI revolution by investing in skills and infrastructure, driving adoption across sectors, and governing AI effectively through regulation, technical standards and assurance. The House will know that my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister laid out his ambitions for the UK on AI at London Tech Week earlier this month. That ambition is for us to lead at home and abroad, and to lead change in our public services.

A theme discussed at some length today is the regulatory environment for artificial intelligence. As hon. Members will know, the Government committed to reviewing the AI regulatory and governance landscape in our national AI strategy. We subsequently published our AI regulation White Paper in March. The approach that the White Paper advocates is proportionate and adaptable. The proposed regulatory framework draws on the expertise of regulators. It supports them in considering AI in their sector by applying a set of high-level principles, which are outcomes-focused and designed to promote responsible AI innovation and adoption. We will work with and through regulators and others in the sector.

On the criticism of the White Paper, I have to say that industry supports our plans. We engaged with over 130 organisations on the proposals last year, and developers, business users and funders praised the flexibility of our approach, which will support innovation and build public trust. The White Paper remains very much in date because of its flexibility. Those who have read it know that its outcomes-focused, adaptable approach is deliberately designed to allow us to manage emerging and unforeseen risks, as well as those risks that we already know about.

The White Paper proposes a number of central support functions, which will be initially provided from within Government, but we will leverage activities and expertise from across the broader economy where possible. That will ensure that the framework effectively addresses AI risks in a way that is proportionate, future-proof and responsive.

Several people raised the issue of international co-operation. There we have shown true leadership. No country can tackle AI on its own, given its global nature. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister announced earlier this month that we will host the first major global summit on AI safety this autumn. The summit will consider the risks of AI, including frontier systems, and will discuss how those risks can be mitigated through internationally co-ordinated action. The summit will also be a platform where countries can work together on developing a shared approach to mitigating risks.

However, the summit cannot be viewed in isolation. It builds on the extensive work that we have done on strengthening AI safety with the OECD, the Council of Europe, the Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, and the UN, and through the G7 Hiroshima AI process. Bilaterally, we have also made great strides in co-ordinating on AI safety with key international partners. In June, the UK signed the Atlantic declaration with the US, in which we agreed to accelerate co-operation on AI, with a focus on ensuring its safe and responsible development. Further, in May, the UK agreed the Hiroshima accord with Japan, in which we committed to focusing UK-Japan AI discussions on promoting human-centric and trustworthy AI, and on interoperability between our AI governance frameworks. We intend to go even further. As per the G7 Hiroshima leaders May 2023 communiqué, we have committed to advancing international discussions on inclusive AI governance and interoperability to achieve our common vision and goal of trustworthy AI that is aligned with shared democratic values.

The hon. Member for Ochil and South Perthshire spoke about AI in the creative industries. Obviously, the advent of AI has sent ripples of transformation across multiple industries, and the creative sphere is no exception. There are plenty of opportunities there, but there are also challenges that we have to address. The ability to automate creative tasks means that, in some cases, work such as copywriting, which could have taken hours if not days, could now take merely a few minutes. Some Members spoke about the risk of homogenising creativity, with the obvious concerns about intellectual property that stem from that. Again, I think it is right that we strike an appropriate balance in the regulation of AI to ensure that we do not stifle innovation, but that we ensure we protect the UK’s thriving creative industries.

In conclusion, the Government remain entirely committed to ensuring that AI develops and is applied safely not just here, but around the world. By effectively addressing the risks that Members have highlighted today, we can also seize the many opportunities that AI has to offer, from transforming our NHS with the discovery of new drugs, new treatments and new ways of supporting patients, to helping us race ahead to net zero and building a greener, fairer, stronger economy. We want to continue engaging with Members across this House, along with our partners in industry and academia, to deliver on those missions. We want to build the broadest possible coalition to ensure that the appropriate guard rails are in place for this technology to develop in a safe, fair and transparent way that will keep the UK right at the forefront of the AI revolution now and in the future. That is our vision and, working with hon. Members across the House, that is what we will deliver.