Artificial Intelligence

Even in the most human sector, the creative industries, one radio presenter was recently reported to have uploaded her previous shows so that the artificial intelligence version of her could cover for her during the holidays. How are new staff to get their first break, if not on holiday cover? Millions of jobs in every sector are at stake. We also hear of analysts uploading the war games of Vladimir Putin to predict how he will fight in Ukraine, with remarkable accuracy. We hear of AI being used by those interested in antibiotics and by those interested in bioweapons. There are long-term challenges here, but there are very short-term ones too.

The Government’s White Paper promotes both innovation and regulation. It does so in the context of Britain being the most advanced nation outside America and China for AI research, development and, potentially, regulation. We can and should cement that success; we are helped by DeepMind, and by OpenAI’s decision only yesterday to open its first office outside the US in London. The Prime Minister’s proposed autumn summit should allow us to build a silicon bridge to the most important technology of this century, and I welcome it hugely.

I want to lay out some things that I hope could be considered at the summit and with this technology. First, the Government clearly need to understand where AI will augment existing possibilities and challenges, and most of those challenges will already be covered by legislation. Employment, for instance, is already regulated, and whether or not companies use AI to augment their HR system, it is already illegal to discriminate. We need to make sure that those existing laws continue to be reinforced, and that we do not waste time reinventing the wheel. We do not have that time, because the technology is already with us. Transparency will be key.

I do believe that, long term, we should be profoundly optimistic that artificial intelligence will create more jobs than it destroys, just as in every previous industrial revolution, but there will be a hump, and the Government need to help as much as they can in working with businesses to provide such opportunities. We should be optimistic that the agency that allows people to be happier in their work—personal agency—will be enhanced by the use of artificial intelligence, because it will take away some of the less exciting aspects of many jobs, particularly at the lower-paid end of the economy, but not by any means solely. There is no shame in eliminating dull parts of jobs from the economy, and there is no nobility in protecting people from inevitable technological change. History tells us that if we do seek to protect people from that technological change, we will impoverish them in the process.

I want to point to the areas where the Government surely must understand that potentially new offences are to be created beyond the tactical risk I have described. We know that it is already illegal to hack the NHS, for instance. That is a tactical problem, even if it might be somewhat different, so I want to take a novel example. We know that it is illegal to discriminate on the grounds of whether someone is pregnant or likely to get pregnant. Warehouses, many of them run by large businesses, gather a huge amount of data about their employees. They gather temperature data and movement data, and they monitor a huge amount. They gather data that goes far beyond anything we had previously seen just a few years ago, and from that data, companies can infer a huge amount, and they might easily infer from that whether someone is pregnant.

If we do that, which we already do, should we now say that it will be illegal to collect such data because it opens up a potential risk? I do not think we should, and I do not think anyone would seriously say we should, but it is open to a level of discrimination. Should we say that such discrimination is illegal, which is the situation now—companies can gather data but it is what they do with it that matters—or should we say that it actually exposes people to risk and companies to a legal risk, and that it may take us backwards rather than forwards? Unsurprisingly, I think there is a middle ground that is the right option.

Suddenly, however, a question as mundane as collecting data about temperature and movements, ostensibly for employee welfare and to meet existing commitments, turns into a political decision: what information is too much and what analysis is too much? It brings us as politicians to questions that suddenly and much more quickly revert to ethics. There is a risk of huge and potentially dangerous information asymmetry. Some people say that there should be a right to a human review and a right to know what cannot be done. All these are ethical issues that come about because of the advent of artificial intelligence in the way that they have not done so previously. I commend to all Members the brilliant paper by Oxford University’s Professor Adams-Prassl on a blueprint for regulating algorithmic management, and I commend it to the Government as well.

AI raises ethical considerations that we have to address in this place in order to come up with the principles-based regulation that we need, rather than trying to play an endless game of whack-a-mole with a system that is going to go far faster than the minds of legislators around the world. We cannot regulate in every instance; we have to regulate horizontally. As I say, the key theme surely must be transparency. A number of Members of Parliament have confessed—if that is the right word—to using AI to write their speeches, but I hope that no more people have used AI to write their speeches than those who have already confessed. Transparency has been key in this place, and it should be key in financial services and everywhere else. For instance, AI-generated videos could already be forced to use watermarking technology that would make it obvious that they are not the real deal. As we come up to an election, I think that such use of existing technology will be important. We need to identify the gaps—the lacunae—both in legislation and in practice.

Artificial intelligence is here with us today and it will be here for a very long time, at the very least augmenting human intelligence. Our endless creativity is what makes us human, and what makes us to some extent immune from being displaced by technology, but we also need to bear in mind that, ultimately, it is by us that decisions will be made about how far AI can be used and what AI cannot be used for. People see a threat when they read some of the most hyperbolic headlines, but these are primarily not about new crimes; they are about using AI for old crimes, but doing them a heck of a lot better.

I end by saying that the real risk here is not the risk of things being done to us by people using AI. The real risk is if we do not seize every possible opportunity, because seizing every possible opportunity will allow us to fend off the worst of AI and to make the greatest progress. If every student knows that teachers are not using it, far more fake essays will be submitted via ChatGPT. Every lawyer and every teacher should be encouraged to use this technology to the maximum safe extent, not to hope that it simply goes away. We know that judges have already seen lawyers constructing cases using AI and that many of the references in those cases were simply fictional, and the same is true of school essays.

The greatest risk to progress in our public services comes from not using AI: it comes not from malevolent people, but from our thinking that we should not embrace this technology. We should ask not what AI can do to us; we should ask what we can do with AI, and how Government and business can get the skills they need to do that best. There is a risk that we continue to lock in the 95% of AI compute that sits with just seven companies, or that we promote monopolies or the discrimination that the hon. Member for Brent Central (Dawn Butler) mentioned. This is an opportunity to avert that, not reinforce it, and to cement not prejudice but diversity. It means that we have an opportunity to use game-changing technology for the maximum benefit of society, and the maximum number of people in that society. We need to enrich the dialogue between Government, the private sector and the third sector, to get the most out of that.

This is a matter for regulation, and for global regulation, as is so much of the modern regulatory landscape. There will be regional variations, but there should also be global norms and principles. Outside the European Union and United States, Britain has that unique position I described, and the Prime Minister’s summit this autumn will be a key opportunity—I hope all our invites are in the post, or at least in an email. I hope that will be an opportunity not just for the Prime Minister to show genuine global leadership, but also an opportunity to involve academia, parliamentarians and broader society in having that conversation, and allow the Government to seize the opportunity and regain some trust on this technology.

I urge the Minister to crack on, seize the day, and take the view that artificial intelligence will be with us for as long as we are around. It will make a huge difference to our world. Done right, it will make everything better; done badly, we will be far poorer for it.

The good news is that we are only really at the start of that journey, and we can shape the technology revolution in our interests if we choose to do so. But that means acting now. It means remembering, for all our discussions about artificial intelligence and computers, that we serve the people. It means being honest about the big questions that we do not yet have answers to. It is on some of those big questions that I will focus my remarks. That is not because I have fully formed answers to all of them at this stage, but because I think it important to put those big questions on the public record in this Parliament.

The big questions that I wish to address are these: how do we maintain a thriving, innovative economy for the technology sector; how can we avoid the risk of a new age of inequality; how can we guarantee the availability of work for people across the country; and how can we balance the power that workers have, and their access to training and skills? Fundamental to all those issues is the role and capacity of the state to support people in the transition.

We will all agree that creating a thriving, innovative economy is a good idea, and we all want Britain to be the go-to destination for investment, research and innovation. We all want the British people, wherever they are from and from whatever background, to know that if they have an idea, they can turn it into a successful business and benefit from it. As the hon. Member for Boston and Skegness alluded to, that means getting the balance right between regulation and economic opportunity, and creating the services that will support people in that journey. Ultimately, it means protecting the United Kingdom’s status as a great place to invest, start, and scale up technology businesses.

Although we are in a relatively strong position today, we risk falling behind quickly if we do not pay attention. In that context, the risk of a new age of inequality is perhaps obvious. If the technology revolution is an extractive process, where big tech takes over the work currently done by humans and restricts the access to markets needed by new companies, power and wealth will be taken from workers and concentrated in the already powerful, wealthy and largely American big-tech companies. I say that not because I am anti-American or indeed anti-big tech, but because it is our job to have Britain’s interest at the front of our minds.

Will big tech pick up the tab for universal credit payments to workers who have been made redundant? Will it pay for our public services in a situation where fewer people are in work paying less tax? Of course not. So we must shape this process in the interests of the British people. That means creating inclusive economic opportunities so that everybody can benefit. For example, where technology improves productivity and profits, workers should benefit from that with better pay and fewer days at work. Where workers come up with innovative ideas on how to use artificial intelligence in their workplace, they should be supported to protect their intellectual property and start their own business.

The availability of work is a more difficult question, and it underpins the risk of a new age of inequality. For many workers, artificial intelligence will replace the mundane and the routine. It can result in human workers being left with more interesting and meaningful work to do themselves. But if the productivity gains are so significant, there is conceivably a world in which we need fewer human workers than we have today. That could result in a four-day week, or even fewer days than that, with work being available still for the majority of people. The technology revolution will clearly create new jobs—a comfort provided to us by the history of previous industrial revolutions. However, that raises two questions, which relate to my next point about the power of workers and their access to training and skills.

There are too many examples today of technology being put upon workers, not developed with them. That creates a workplace culture that is worried about surveillance, oppression, and the risk of being performance managed or even fired by an algorithm. That must change, not just because it is the right thing to do but because, I believe, it is in the interests of business managers and owners for workers to want to use these new technologies, as opposed to feeling oppressed by them. On training, if someone who is a worker today wants to get ahead of this revolution, where do they turn? Unless they work in a particularly good business, the likelihood is that they have no idea where to go to get access to such training or skill support. Most people cannot just give up their job or go part time to complete a higher education course, so how do we provide access to free, relevant training that workers are entitled to take part in at work? How does the state partner with business to co-create and deliver that in the interests of our country and the economy? The role of the Government in this debate is not about legislation and regulation; it is about the services we provide, the welfare state and the social contract.

That takes me to my next point: the role and capacity of the Government to help people with the technology transition. Do we really think that our public services today are geared towards helping people benefit from what will take place? Do we really believe our welfare system is fit for purpose in helping people who find themselves out of work? Artificial intelligence will not just change the work of low-paid workers, who might just be able to get by on universal credit; it will also affect workers on middle and even higher incomes, including journalists, lawyers, creative sector workers, retail staff, public sector managers and many more. Those workers will have mortgages or rents to pay, and universal credit payments will go nowhere near covering their bills. If a significant number of people in our country find themselves out of work, what will they do? How will the Government respond? The system as it is designed today is not fit for that future.

I raise those questions not because I have easy answers to them, but because the probability of those outcomes is likely. The severity of the problem will be dictated by what action we take now to mitigate those risks. In my view, the state and the Government must be prepared and must get themselves into a position to help people with the technology transition. There seems now to be political consensus about the opportunities of the technology revolution, and I welcome that, but the important unanswered question is: how? We cannot stop this technology revolution from happening. As I have said, we either shape it in our interests or face being shaped by it. We can sit by and watch the market develop, adapt and innovate, taking power and wealth away from workers and creating many of the problems I have explained today, leaving the Government and our public services to pick up the pieces, probably without sufficient resources to do so. Alternatively, we can decide today how this technology revolution will roll out across our country.

I was asked the other day whether I was worried that this technology-enabled future would create a world of despair for my children. My answer was that I am actually more worried about the effects of climate change. I say that because we knew about the causes and consequences of climate change in the 1970s, but we did nothing about it. We allowed companies to extract wealth and power and leave behind the damage for the public to pick up. We are now way behind where we need to be, and we are actively failing to turn it around, but with this technology revolution, we have an opportunity in front of us to show the public that a different, more hopeful future is possible for our country—a country filled with opportunity for better work, better pay and better public services. Let us not make the same mistakes as our predecessors in the 1970s, and let us not be trapped in the current debate of doom and despair for our country, even though there are many reasons to feel like that.

Let us seize this opportunity for modernisation and reform, remembering that it is about people and our country. We can put the technology revolution at the heart of our political agenda and our vision for a modern Britain with a strong, successful and sustainable economy. We can have a technology revolution that works in the interests of the British people and a Britain that is upgraded so that it works once again. However, to shape the technology revolution in our interests, that work must start now.

Having said that AI is not new—it draws on long-standing research and practice—it is nevertheless true to say that we are encountering an acceleration in its application and depth of progress. To some extent, the degree of public interest in it, without resolution to some of the policy questions that the hon. Member for Bristol North West alluded to, carries some risks. In fact, the nomenclature “artificial intelligence” is in some ways unhelpful. The word “artificial” is usually used in a pejorative, even disdainful way. When combined with the word “intelligence”, which is one of the most prized human attributes, the “artificial” rather negates the positivity of the “intelligence”, leading to thoughts of dystopia, rather than the more optimistic side of the argument to which my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness referred. Nevertheless, it is a subject matter with which we need to grapple.

In terms of the pervasiveness of AI, much of it is already familiar to us, whether it is navigation by sat-nav or suggestions of what we might buy from Amazon or Tesco. The analysis of data on our behaviour and the world is embedded, but it must be said that the launch of ChatGPT to the public just before Christmas has catapulted to mass attention the power already available in large language models. That is a breakthrough moment for millions of people around the world.

As my hon. Friend said, much of the current experience of AI is not only benign, but positively beneficial. The evidence that our Committee has taken has looked at particular applications and sectors. If we look at healthcare, for example, we took evidence from a medical company that has developed a means of recognising potential prostate cancer issues from MRI scans far before any symptoms present themselves, and with more accuracy than previous procedures. We heard from the chief executive of a company that is using AI to accelerate drug discovery. It is designing drugs from data, and selecting the patients who stand to benefit from them. That means that uses could be found, among more accurately specified patient groups, for drugs that have failed clinical trials on the grounds not of safety but of efficacy. That could lead to a very early prospect of better health outcomes.

We heard evidence that the positive effects of AI on education are significant. Every pupil is different; we know that. Every good teacher tailors their teaching to the responses and aptitudes of each student, but that can be done so much better if the tailoring is augmented through the use of technology. As Professor Rose Luckin of University College London told us,

“students who might have been falling through the net can be helped to be brought back into the pack”

with the help of personalised AI. In the field of security, if intelligence assessments of a known attacker are paired with AI-rich facial recognition technology, suspects may be pinpointed and apprehended before they have the chance to execute a deadly attack.

There are many more advantages of AI, but we must not only observe but act on the risks that arise from the deployment of AI. Some have talked about the catastrophic potential of AI. Much of what is suggested, as in the case of the example given by my hon. Friend the Member for Boston and Skegness, is speculative, the work of fiction, and certainly in advance of any known pathway. It is important to keep a cool head on these matters. There has been talk in recent weeks of the possibility of AI killing many humans in the next couple of years. We should judge our words carefully. There are important threats, but portents of disaster must be met with thinking from cool, analytical heads, and concrete proposals for steps to take.

I very much applaud the seriousness with which the Government are approaching the subject of the governance of AI. For example, a very sensible starting point is making use of the deep knowledge of applications among our sector regulators, many of which enjoy great respect. I have mentioned medicine; take the medical regulator, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. With its deep experience of supervising clinical trials and the drug discovery process, it is clear that it is the right starting point; we should draw on its experience and expertise. If AI is to be used in drug discovery or diagnostics, it makes sense to draw on the MHRA’s years of deep experience, for which it is renowned worldwide.

It is also right to require regulators to come together to develop a joint understanding of the issues, and to ask them to work collectively on regulatory approaches, so that we avoid inconsistency and inadvertently applying different doctrines in different sectors. It is right that regulators should talk to each other, and that there should be coherence. Given the commonalities, there should be a substantial, well-funded, central capacity to develop regulatory competence across AI, as the Government White Paper proposed.

I welcome the Prime Minister’s initiative, which the hon. Member for Bristol North West mentioned. In Washington, the Prime Minister agreed to convene a global summit on AI safety in the UK in the autumn. Like other technologies, AI certainly does not respect national boundaries. Our country has an outstanding reputation on AI, the research and development around it, and—at our best—regulatory policy and regulation, so it is absolutely right that we should lead the summit. I commend the Prime Minister for his initiative in securing that very important summit.

The security dimension will be of particular importance. Like-minded countries, including the US and Japan, have a strong interest in developing standards together. That reflects the fact that we see the world through similar eyes, and that the security of one of us is of prime importance to the others. The hon. Member for Bristol North West, in his debate a few weeks ago, made a strong point about international collaboration.

One reason why a cool-headed approach needs to be taken is that the subject is susceptible to the involvement of hot heads. We must recognise that heading off the risks is not straightforward; it requires deep reflection and consideration. Knee-jerk regulatory responses may prove unworkable, will not be widely taken up by other countries, and may therefore be injurious to the protections that policy innovation aims to deliver. I completely agree with the hon. Gentleman that there is time for regulation, but not much time. We cannot hang around, but we need to take the appropriate time to get this right. My Committee will do what it can to assist on that.

If the Government reflect on these matters over the summer, their response should address a number of challenges that have arisen in this debate, and from the evidence that my Committee took. Solutions must draw on expertise from different sectors and professions, and indeed from people with expertise in the House, such as those contributing to this debate. Let me suggest briefly a number of challenges that a response on AI governance should address. One that has emerged is a challenge on bias and discrimination. My hon. Friend the Member for Brent Central has been clear and persistent in asking questions to ensure that the datasets on which algorithms are trained do not embed a degree of bias, leading to results that we would not otherwise tolerate. I dare say she will refer to those issues in her speech. For example, as has been mentioned, in certain recruitment settings, if data reflects the gender or ethnic background of previous staff, the profile of an “ideal” candidate may owe a great deal to past biases. That needs to be addressed in the governance regime.

There is a second and related point on the black box challenge. One feature of artificial intelligence is that the computer system learns from itself. The human operator or commissioner of the software may not know why the algorithm or AI software has made a recommendation or proposed a course of action. That is a big challenge for those of us who take an interest in science policy. The scientific method is all about transparency; it is about putting forward a hypothesis, testing it against the data, and either confirming or rejecting the hypothesis. That is all done publicly; publication is at the heart of the scientific method. If important conclusions are reached —and they may be accurate conclusions, with great predictive power—but we do not know how, because that is deep within the networks of the AI, that is a profound challenge to the scientific method and its applications.

Facial recognition software is a good example. The Metropolitan police is using facial recognition software combined with AI. It commissioned a study—a very rigorous study—from the National Physical Laboratory, which looks at whether there is any racial bias that can be determined from the subjects that are detected through the AI algorithms. The study finds that there is no evidence of that, but that is on the basis of a comparison of outputs against other settings; it is not based on a knowledge of the algorithms, which in this case is proprietary. It may or may not be possible to look into the black box, but that is one question that I think Governments and regulators will need to address.

Another challenge we need to address is access to compute, which is to say, the power to analyse data. Again, the bigger the computer, the bigger the compute power and the more effective and successful algorithms will be, but that can be a barrier to entry to smaller firms. If they are reserved to giants, that has profound consequences for the development of the industry. It is one of the reasons why I think the Government are right to consider plans for a dedicated compute resource in this country.

Those issues combine to make for what we might call an anti-trust challenge, to which the hon. Member for Bristol North West referred. There is a great danger that already we may concentrate market power in the hands of a very small number of companies, from which it is very difficult thereafter to diversify and have the degree of contestability and competition that the full benefits of AI should be able to respond to. Our regulators, in particular our competition regulators, will need to pay close attention to that.

Related to that is the law and regulation around intellectual property and copyright. In the creative industries, our copyright gives strong protection to people who create their own original work. The degree of modification or use without payment and licensing that is tolerable without damaging the returns and the vibrancy of our crucial creative sector is very important.

Another challenge is on liability, which mirrors some of the debates taking place about our large social media platforms. If we develop a piece of AI in an application that is used for illegal purposes, should we, as the developer or the person who licenses it, be responsible for its use by an end user or should that be a matter for them? In financial services, we have over time imposed strong requirements on providers of financial services, such as banks, to, in the jargon, know your customer—KYC. It is not sufficient just to say, “I had no reason to suppose that my facilities were going to be used for money laundering or drug trafficking.” There is a responsibility to find out what the intended use is. Those questions need to be addressed here. The hon. Member for Bristol North West raised questions about employment and the transition to a new model of employment, many of which have some upsides.

One of the classic definitions of a sentient computer is that it passes the Turing test: if there was a screen between a person and the computer they were interacting with, would they know that it was a computer, or would they think it was a human being? The experience of a lot of my constituents when dealing with some large bureaucracies is that even if there is a human on the end of the telephone, they might as well be a computer because they are driven by the script and the software. In fact, one might say that they fail the Turing test. The greater personalisation of AI may overcome what can be a pretty dispiriting experience for employees who have to park their humanity and read out a script to a consumer. There are big challenges but also opportunities there.

A couple of other things have been referred to, such as the challenge of international co-ordination. We have the agency to set our own rules, but there is no point in doing so without taking the opportunity to influence the world. We will be stronger if we have—at least among like-minded countries, and preferably beyond—a strong consensus about how we should proceed.

Many Members have referred to the use of AI for medical advances, and quantum computers will certainly enable medicines and medical solutions to be found much more quickly. However, as I said when evidence was being given to the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee, even something as simple as body mass index, which is used in the medical world, is a flawed measurement. The use of BMI in the building of AI will integrate that bias into anything that the AI produces. Members may not be aware that the BMI scale was created not by a doctor but by an astronomer and mathematician in the 1800s. What he was trying to do was identify l’homme moyen—the average man—in statistical terms. The scale was never meant to be used in the medical world in the way that it is. People can be prevented from having certain medical procedures if their BMI is too high. The Committee was given no evidence that we would rule out, or mitigate, a flawed system such as BMI in the medical profession and the medical world. We should be worried about this, because in 10 or 20 years’ time it will be too late to explain that BMI was always discriminatory against women, Asian men and black people. It is important for us to get this right now.

I recognise the huge benefits that AI can have, but I want to stress the need to stay sober and recognise the huge risks as well. When we ask certain organisations where they get their data from, the response is very opaque: they do not tell us where they are getting their data from. I understand that some of them get their mass data scraping from sites such as Reddit, which is not really where people would go to become informed on many things.

If we do not take this seriously, we will be automating discrimination. It will become so easy just to accept what the system is telling us, and people who are already marginalised will become further marginalised. Many, if not most, AI-powered systems have been shown to contain bias, whether against people of colour, women, people with disabilities or those with other protected characteristics. For instance, in the case of passport applications, the system keeps on saying that a person’s eyes are closed when in fact they have a disability. We must ensure that we measure the impact on the public’s rights and freedoms alongside the advances in AI. We cannot become too carried away—or drunk—with all the benefits, without thinking about everything else.

At the beginning, I thought it reasonable for the Government to say, “We will just expand legislation that we already have,” but when the Committee was taking evidence, I realised that we need to go a great deal further—that we need something like a digital Bill of Rights so that people understand and know their rights, and so that those rights are protected. At the moment, that is not the case.

There was a really stark example when we heard some information in regard to musicians, music and our voices. Our voices are currently not protected, so with the advancements of deepfake, anybody in this House can have their voice attached to something using deepfake and we would have no legal recourse, because at the moment our voices are not protected. I believe that we need a digital Bill of Rights that would outlaw the most dangerous uses of AI, which should have no place in a real democracy.

The Government should commit to strengthening the rights of the public so that they know what is AI-generated or whether facial recognition—the digital imprint of their face—is being used in any way. We know, for instance, that the Met police have on file millions of people’s images—innocent people—that should not be there. Those images should be taken off the police database. If an innocent person’s face is on the database and, at some point, that is put on a watch list, the domino effect means that they could be accused of doing something they have not done.

The UK’s approach to AI currently diverges from that of our closest trading partners, and I find that quite strange. It is not a good thing and there is an apparent trade-off between progress and safety. I think we should always err on the side of safety and ethics. Progress will always happen; we cannot stop progress. Companies will always invest in AI. It is the future, so we do not have to worry about that—people will run away with that. What we have to do is ensure that we protect people’s safety, because otherwise, instead of being industry leaders in the UK, we will be known as the country that has shoddy or poor practices. Nobody really wants that.

There are countries that are outlawing how facial recognition is used, for instance, but we are not doing that in the UK, so we are increasingly looking like the outlier in this discussion and protection around AI. Government’s first job is to protect their citizens, so we should protect citizens now from the dangers of AI.

Harms are already arising from AI. The Government’s recently published White Paper takes the view that strong, clear protections are simply not needed. I think the Government are wrong on that. Strong, clear protections are most definitely needed—and needed now. Even if the Government just catch up with what is happening in Europe and the US, that would be more than we are doing at the moment. We need new, legally binding regulations.

The White Paper currently has plans to water down data rights and data protection. The Data Protection and Digital Information (No. 2) Bill paints an alarming picture. It will redefine what counts as personal data. All these things have been put in place piecemeal to ensure that personal data is protected. If we lower the protection in the definition of what is personal data, that will mean that any company can use our personal data for anything it wants and we will have very limited recourse to stop that. At the end of the day, our personal data is ultimately what powers many AI systems, and it will be left ripe for exploitation and abuse. The proposals are woefully inadequate.

The scale of the challenge is vast, but instead of reining in this technology, the Government’s approach is to let it off the leash, and that is problematic. When we received evidence from a representative from the Met police, she said that she has nothing to hide so what is the problem, for instance, in having the fingerprint, if you like, of her face everywhere that she goes? I am sure that we all have either curtains or blinds in our houses. If we are not doing anything illegal, why have curtains or blinds? Why not just let everyone look into our house? Most abuse happens in the home so, by the same argument, surely allowing everyone to look into each other’s houses would eliminate a lot of abuse.

In our country we have the right to privacy, and people should have that right. Our digital fingerprints should not be taken without our consent, as we have policing by consent. The Met’s use of live facial recognition and retrospective facial recognition is worrying. I had a meeting with Mark Rowley the other day and, to be honest, he did not really understand the implications, which is a worry.

Like many people, I could easily get carried away and get drunk with this AI debate, but I am the driver. I need to stay sober to make sure everyone gets home safely.