Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps they are taking to use (a) artificial intelligence and (b) data to help increase their Department's productivity.
Answered by Feryal Clark - Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology)
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) is committed to improving its productivity, including through artificial intelligence and effective use of data.
We draw on a range of resources, published on GOV.UK, to inform our AI and data usage. For example, the Generative AI Framework, the Data Maturity Assessment, the Ethics, Transparency and Accountability Framework, the Data Ethics Framework, and the Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard.
The department also has access to the Central Digital & Data Office for expert advice.
We will continue to regularly review our usage of AI and data to maximise productivity benefits for staff and the public.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with reference to her Department's press release entitled AI Safety Institute releases new AI safety evaluations platform, published on 10 May 2024, what steps she is taking to encourage the integration of the Inspect platform in AI development projects in (a) healthcare, (b) transportation and (c) other sectors.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The AI Safety Institute has responsibility for developing and conducting evaluations on advanced AI systems, including assessing potentially harmful capabilities. As part of this, AISI has released an open-source evaluations platform called Inspect. Inspect is designed to help AI safety researchers build more standardised and reproduceable safety evaluations. Whilst Inspect will not support the development of new AI products and services directly, by open-sourcing the platform we are making it easier to test the safety of new advanced AI systems.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, with which (a) people and (b) organisations the AI Safety Institute (i) consulted and (ii) collaborated in developing the Inspect toolset; and whether international AI safety bodies were (A) consulted and (B) involved in collaboration.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The AI Safety Institute is the first state-backed organisation focused on advancing AI safety for the public interest. Safety evaluations for frontier AI systems are often built in non-standardised formats, making it difficult for other organisations to reproduce and verify them. Inspect was developed by AI Safety Institute technical staff in response to this problem. Since making Inspect open-source, technical staff have briefed major AI labs, safety research organisations, academics and government experts on its potential use cases. This should enable closer collaboration across the AI Safety research ecosystem.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to monitor the potential impact of the Inspect platform on global AI safety standards.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The Inspect platform has the potential to unlock more seamless collaboration between AI safety researchers across the world by improving the standardisation and repeatability of safety evaluations. The AI Safety Institute will monitor the uptake of Inspect by drawing on usage data from GitHub, where the toolkit is available for anyone to access, and will continue to engage with AI safety researchers and developers to continue to improve the model. The upcoming AI Seoul Summit will be a valuable forum to deepen AISI’s global collaboration efforts on AI Safety standards.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what support is available to media organisations to (a) detect and (b) counteract foreign disinformation.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The Government takes the issue of information threats to national security seriously, and the UK has a strong record of working closely with a wide range of different stakeholders to tackle these risks.
We recognise the invaluable role of a free and independent press in providing accurate and reliable information. Government works to complement the efforts of our independent press sector through a number of initiatives to counter disinformation.
For example, in 2022 the Government provided the BBC World Service with £4.1m emergency funding to help it to continue to bring independent, impartial and accurate news to people in Ukraine and Russia and counter disinformation in the face of increased propaganda from the Russian state. The Government has also directly sanctioned Russia-backed state media organisations who spread disinformation, helping to prevent the most prolific and harmful sources of disinformation from spreading propaganda to UK audiences online.
The Government has also recently passed the Online Safety Act (OSA), which includes the Foreign Interference Offence as a priority offence. This will require social media companies to take action against a wide range of state-sponsored disinformation and interference targeted at the UK. Ofcom will produce guidance for providers on how they should fulfil these duties. The consultation for this guidance closed in March 2024 and Ofcom is currently finalising these codes, due to come into force at the end of 2024.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what comparative assessment she has made of the regulatory approach by (a) the UK and (b) other advanced digital economies on enforcing a minimum age for the use of encrypted messaging services.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The UK’s Online Safety Act will make the UK the safest place to be a child online. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are for children. Providers which have age restrictions need to specify in their terms of service what measures they use to prevent underage access and apply these terms consistently The Online Safety Act will require user-to-user and search services to implement robust processes to tackle illegal content and safeguard children on their platforms.
Under the Act, where an in-scope provider makes significant changes to their service, they will be required to update their illegal content and children’s risk assessment. Ofcom will have strong investigatory powers to determine the impact of changes that particular providers make. Where Ofcom finds that a functionality is a risk factor for illegal content or harm to children on particular services, then it is empowered to set out steps providers should take to mitigate this. Ofcom have robust enforcement powers available to use against companies who fail to fulfil their duties, including imposing substantial fines.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, if she will make an assessment of the potential impact of Meta's decision to lower the minimum age for access to WhatsApp to 13 on children's levels of exposure to extremist content.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The UK’s Online Safety Act will make the UK the safest place to be a child online. The strongest protections in the Online Safety Act are for children. Providers which have age restrictions need to specify in their terms of service what measures they use to prevent underage access and apply these terms consistently The Online Safety Act will require user-to-user and search services to implement robust processes to tackle illegal content and safeguard children on their platforms.
Under the Act, where an in-scope provider makes significant changes to their service, they will be required to update their illegal content and children’s risk assessment. Ofcom will have strong investigatory powers to determine the impact of changes that particular providers make. Where Ofcom finds that a functionality is a risk factor for illegal content or harm to children on particular services, then it is empowered to set out steps providers should take to mitigate this. Ofcom have robust enforcement powers available to use against companies who fail to fulfil their duties, including imposing substantial fines.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what assessment she has made of the potential impact of natural disasters on (a) semiconductor supply chains and (b) global technology markets.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
As the recently published Critical Imports and Supply Chains Strategy highlights, the UK Government is building capability to forecast and respond to external shocks to critical supply chains, including natural disasters. The Government will continue work to further the resilience of our critical imports and their supply chains, including semiconductors.
The UK Government is working closely with international partners, both bilaterally and multilaterally, to improve supply chain resilience for semiconductors. This includes working with the G7 and supporting the work of the OECD to improve the availability and exchange of information on semiconductor supply chain risks.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking to support the diversification of semiconductor manufacturing to enhance supply chain resilience.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
The UK Government is taking steps domestically and internationally to address supply chain diversification requirements for different types of semiconductors. The UK has world-leading capability in semiconductor design, R&D, and compound semiconductors and the Government is boosting the UK domestic sector through targeted intervention. Internationally, the UK Government is working closely with the G7 and bilaterally with partners such as Japan, the Republic of Korea and the US to improve global supply chain diversification and resilience.
Asked by: Tanmanjeet Singh Dhesi (Labour - Slough)
Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:
To ask the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, what steps she is taking with allies to secure semiconductor supply chains in the context of heightened tensions in the Taiwan Strait.
Answered by Saqib Bhatti - Shadow Minister (Culture, Media and Sport)
Safeguarding the UK against supply chain disruptions is a key pillar of the UK National Semiconductor Strategy, and international collaboration is crucial to achieving this. The UK Government works closely with international partners, including through semiconductor partnerships with Japan and the Republic of Korea. These partnerships explore shared approaches and solutions to improve global supply chain resilience and aim to establish areas of collaboration for mutual strategic advantage. Multilaterally, the UK Government is engaging with the G7 and the OECD Semiconductor Informal Exchange Network to strengthen understanding and coordination of global supply chain risks.