Question to the Department for Science, Innovation & Technology:

To ask His Majesty's Government what discussions they are holding with foreign language professionals and their representative bodies about the regulation of machine translation in the context of developing AI policy.

We recognise that the vast majority of AI systems - including machine translation - are best regulated at the point of use and in the context in which they are deployed. That’s why in response to the AI Action Plan, the government has committed to supporting regulators in evaluating their AI capabilities and understanding how these can be strengthened.

In regard to foreign language professionals, the GCHQ-chaired cross-Government Languages Group brings together government language professionals, developers and commissioning officers who have a stake in machine translation capability, to capture use cases and develop best practice for its development and deployment.