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Friday 5th June 2026
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10:06
10:06
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>> My Lords, I beg to introduce a bill to provide certain protections for persons who live together or for persons who live together or have lived together as a couple, to make provision about the property make provision about the property of deceased persons survived by a cohabitant and for connected purposes. I beg to move that this
**** Possible New Speaker ****
purposes. I beg to move that this bill be now read a first time. The question is that this bill
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be now read a first time. As many of that opinion will say, content the contrary not contents. The contents have it. First reading of a private member's Bill Lord Weir of Ballyholme.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords, I beg to introduce a bill to affirm and protect the sovereignty of the United Kingdom over the Chagos Islands and the British Indian Ocean Territory to make provision restricting the make provision restricting the cession or transfer of sovereignty without the approval of Parliament and without the consent of the people to provide for the protection of the territory's protection of the territory's strategic and defence importance and for connected purposes. I beg
**** Possible New Speaker ****
to move that this Bill be now read a first time. The question is that this bill
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be now read a first time. As many are of that opinion will say, content and the contrary not content and the contrary not contents. The contents have it. Motion for debate. The impact of artificial intelligence. The Archbishop of Canterbury. My Lords, I wish to thank the usual channels for allowing me to hold this debate today and the parliamentary staff who have enabled it to happen in the Bible. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, of human beings, you have made them a little lower than angels.
You crowned them with glory and honour and put everything under their feet. God created human beings in his own image with glory and honour, each and every one of us, regardless of who we are or what we do, we carry an inherent dignity and immeasurable value. This is not in spite of our weakness, vulnerabilities, or limitations, but in many ways because of and through them God made us us to be relational beings in need of him and in needs of others.
Not sufficient on our own. I start here because fundamentally, our vision of what it is to be human, of our glorious humanity must inform the rest of our debate about technology and AI. Pope Leo's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas begins here to. God made us creative beings and AI and wider technologies are a remarkable product of human creativity. They have led to extraordinary discoveries and breakthroughs at speeds that we could never have imagined. They have connected us across the globe and opened up endless new opportunities for working, creating, learning, and travelling.
I now carry vast information processing power and connectivity potential in my pocket with me every day. But this extraordinary product of human creativity and the power it places in our hands also raises urgent new questions. What are the implications for our human relationships? For our connections with family and friends? How does it impact on our working lives? The existence of or quality of our jobs? What are the implications for warfare, for climate change, for our engagement with information and democracy? Just because we could create something or deploy technology in a certain way, does that mean we should, as C.S.
Lewis put it, we all want progress, but progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. If you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not always get get you any nearer. Wave after wave of technological innovation is taking place as we speak, and the question we should be asking is simple. Where are we going? What is our vision for how this technology will serve human flourishing? We are in danger of unleashing Leashing AI into our lives and society without the theological, philosophical, and spiritual framework with which to make decisions about creating, controlling, using, or directing it.
Above all, we need to ensure that AI is being designed, built, regulated, and used to serve our glorious humanity and not to diminish it. To be pro-human, as Pope Leo has said, humanity, in all its grandeur and woundedness, must never be replaced or surpassed. This poses the question does AI make human life more human? The question matters for those designing, developing and building the technology as they think about what ideologies and belief systems should underpin the models.
For there is no such thing as value neutral technology. It matters for governments, for policy makers, as they determine what should and should not be permitted and regulated. And it matters for those using the technology. Many feel that AI is affecting them hugely without having any say in the matter. Others feel that the things which make us unique as humans are at risk of being eroded, devalued and replaced by AI. As people turn to chatbots rather than other human beings, for comfort, for wisdom in moments of loneliness, loss, anxiety, or pain.
How should we
**** Possible New Speaker ****
purposes. I beg to move that this bill be now read a first time. The question is that this bill
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be now read a first time. As many of that opinion will say, content the contrary not contents. The contents have it. First reading of a private member's Bill Lord Weir of Ballyholme.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords, I beg to introduce a bill to affirm and protect the sovereignty of the United Kingdom over the Chagos Islands and the British Indian Ocean Territory to make provision restricting the make provision restricting the cession or transfer of sovereignty without the approval of Parliament and without the consent of the people to provide for the protection of the territory's protection of the territory's strategic and defence importance and for connected purposes. I beg
**** Possible New Speaker ****
to move that this Bill be now read a first time. The question is that this bill
**** Possible New Speaker ****
The question is that this bill be now read a first time. As many are of that opinion will say, content and the contrary not content and the contrary not contents. The contents have it. Motion for debate. The impact of artificial intelligence. The Archbishop of Canterbury. My Lords, I wish to thank the usual channels for allowing me to hold this debate today and the parliamentary staff who have enabled it to happen in the Bible. The writer of the book of Hebrews says, of human beings, you have made them a little lower than angels.
You crowned them with glory and honour and put everything under their feet. God created human beings in his own image with glory and honour, each and every one of us, regardless of who we are or what we do, we carry an inherent dignity and immeasurable value. This is not in spite of our weakness, vulnerabilities, or limitations, but in many ways because of and through them God made us us to be relational beings in need of him and in needs of others.
Not sufficient on our own. I start here because fundamentally, our vision of what it is to be human, of our glorious humanity must inform the rest of our debate about technology and AI. Pope Leo's encyclical Magnifica Humanitas begins here to. God made us creative beings and AI and wider technologies are a remarkable product of human creativity. They have led to extraordinary discoveries and breakthroughs at speeds that we could never have imagined. They have connected us across the globe and opened up endless new opportunities for working, creating, learning, and travelling.
I now carry vast information processing power and connectivity potential in my pocket with me every day. But this extraordinary product of human creativity and the power it places in our hands also raises urgent new questions. What are the implications for our human relationships? For our connections with family and friends? How does it impact on our working lives? The existence of or quality of our jobs? What are the implications for warfare, for climate change, for our engagement with information and democracy? Just because we could create something or deploy technology in a certain way, does that mean we should, as C.S.
Lewis put it, we all want progress, but progress means getting nearer to the place where you want to be. If you have taken a wrong turning, then to go forward does not always get get you any nearer. Wave after wave of technological innovation is taking place as we speak, and the question we should be asking is simple. Where are we going? What is our vision for how this technology will serve human flourishing? We are in danger of unleashing Leashing AI into our lives and society without the theological, philosophical, and spiritual framework with which to make decisions about creating, controlling, using, or directing it.
Above all, we need to ensure that AI is being designed, built, regulated, and used to serve our glorious humanity and not to diminish it. To be pro-human, as Pope Leo has said, humanity, in all its grandeur and woundedness, must never be replaced or surpassed. This poses the question does AI make human life more human? The question matters for those designing, developing and building the technology as they think about what ideologies and belief systems should underpin the models.
For there is no such thing as value neutral technology. It matters for governments, for policy makers, as they determine what should and should not be permitted and regulated. And it matters for those using the technology. Many feel that AI is affecting them hugely without having any say in the matter. Others feel that the things which make us unique as humans are at risk of being eroded, devalued and replaced by AI. As people turn to chatbots rather than other human beings, for comfort, for wisdom in moments of loneliness, loss, anxiety, or pain.
How should we
10:12
First Reading:British SovereigntyProtection (Chagos Islands) Bill
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
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First Reading:British SovereigntyProtection (Chagos Islands) Bill
Lord Weir of Ballyholme (Democratic Unionist Party)
adopt AI and what is the right place for it? In our relationships, our families, and our societies? If humanity is to be placed at the centre of all thinking and decisions about AI, I would like to suggest there are three fundamental questions to help us to work out. What a pro-human framework for AI would look like, and how it informs practice. Firstly, what does it mean to be human? If God crowned humans with glory and honour, how will AI respect indeed cultivate that sort of dignity and value? There are many ways in which AI is helping to enhance human dignity, to protect and uphold life.
If you want to look to the potential of AI to serve human beings, you need look no further than across the sciences. In nursing, we can see the potential of AI. Nursing and medical care are areas where the value of human dignity is visible in some of the most tangible, practical ways. I don't believe that a robot or an AI model will or should ever replace human beings. In some of these settings, sitting at the bedside of a patient to deliver very difficult news, or supporting a woman through the delivery of her baby are deeply vulnerable moments where human touch, eye contact, human emotional intelligence are invaluable.
However, there are many ways in which AI is having a hugely positive impact on healthcare. AI is beginning to make childbirth safer. From automated ultrasound to
If you want to look to the potential of AI to serve human beings, you need look no further than across the sciences. In nursing, we can see the potential of AI. Nursing and medical care are areas where the value of human dignity is visible in some of the most tangible, practical ways. I don't believe that a robot or an AI model will or should ever replace human beings. In some of these settings, sitting at the bedside of a patient to deliver very difficult news, or supporting a woman through the delivery of her baby are deeply vulnerable moments where human touch, eye contact, human emotional intelligence are invaluable.
However, there are many ways in which AI is having a hugely positive impact on healthcare. AI is beginning to make childbirth safer. From automated ultrasound to
10:14
Debate: Impact of Artificial Intelligence on human relationships and society
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Debate: Impact of Artificial Intelligence on human relationships and society
predictive tools for pre-eclampsia to consistent foetal heart rate monitoring. There are sadly other uses of AI today which, rather than enhancing human dignity, are providing new ways of degrading it or violating it. A recent report from Durham University presented evidence that chatbots are now facilitating violence against women and girls, allowing role play of
10:14
10:15
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Bishops)
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The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Bishops)
harms are not simply the result of human user misuse. AI platform human user misuse. AI platform design choices, policies and governance failures are encouraging and enabling them, and existing and enabling them, and existing regulation is wholly inadequate to prevent them. My second question is what are we here for and what gives our lives meaning and purpose? The Christian faith teaches that we are designed for relationship, relationship with God and with others and with the created world around us.
We find meaning and purpose in these relationships and in dignified work where we can partner with God to see his kingdom come on earth. We are human beings crowned with glory and honour here to glorify God. Perhaps one of the most profound areas of purpose is work. We are already seeing record numbers of 18 to 24 year olds, neither in education, training nor employment, and this is only set to worsen as angelic AI starts to come online. One area of the greatest gravity that this debate must address is how we, as the political class, are going to help young people navigate a rapidly changing world.
Yet I AI impacts our sense of meaning in other ways that go beyond work. A fundamental quality of a human being. One source of our wellbeing and sense of purpose is our ability to create, imagine, think, and invent. God placed humans in the Garden of Eden to look after the garden. He asked Adam to name the animals and species there. An inherently creative task. On one hand, AI can enhance human creativity and imagination. It puts more information people, networks, tools at our disposal.
It can increase efficiency and take away the burden of more repetitive and administrative tasks. But there are reasons to be concerned that AI is, in fact, having the opposite effect on our human abilities. There is already concerning evidence about the impact of technology, and particularly smartphones are having on the human ability to think and create. Mary Harrington wrote an article last year entitled thinking is Becoming a Luxury Good. It highlights evidence of the of human brain power decreasing without adult literacy scores levelling off and declining in the past decade.
In the majority of the OECD countries and some of the sharpest declines are among the poorest. Child literacy is also declining. Research shows that children who are exposed to more than two hours a day of recreational screen time have worse working memory processing speeds, attention levels, language skills and executive functions than children who are not. A study has shown that heavy users of AI struggle more with critical thinking as they stop thinking for themselves, and their capability atrophies.
And the irony is that while AI might make us feel like we are more creative at scale, AI's inherent nature means ideas will in fact become more predictable, unoriginal, homogenised. The human ability to think and create surpasses the capabilities of AI. We must work to ensure that our human abilities are given space to grow and thrive. To be the thinking creative beings God has made us to be. The Pope put this well last November during a live address to young people at the National Catholic Youth Centre in Indianapolis.
Be prudent, be wise. Be careful that your use of AI does not limit your true human growth. Use it in such a way that if it disappears tomorrow, you would still know how to think, how to create, how to act on your own, how to form authentic relationships. Remember, AI can never replace that unique gift that you are to the world. My third question is truth. The pilot notoriously asked Jesus this question as he was being sentenced to death according to the Christian faith.
Truth is not something we define ourselves or to alter to suit our own personal, political, or commercial ends. Truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ and expressed in loving God and loving others. Truth is a fundamental foundation on which our personal lives and societies are built. Without common truth, a flourishing common life becomes impossible. Generative AI cannot tell right from wrong fact, from fiction instead of truth. It produces a statistical echo of what has been said before in material it has been trained on.
It reinforces biases inherent in the way that it has been coded, as well as social biases present in the material it has been fed. It also simply invents information. One study found that chatbots did this in at least 3% of times, some as much as 27%. Even more concerning is that AI can be weaponised by malign actors. It is the perfect tool for someone wanting to create fake news. Its ability to disperse disinformation, discredit legitimate information, censor other information, and gain algorithms has the potential to distort and rewrite reality to prevent present fiction as fact and all with a veneer of objective truth.
It has the power to manipulate what we see and what we believe at a speed and a scale never seen before. What is presented often as a tool in the democratisation of knowledge, could all too easily become the tool of the autocrat, and the potential for real harm is still to be fully realised. There is a serious risk that this will lead to a fundamental breakdown in trust across society. The real danger is not our raising gullibility, but our raising cynicism.
It is not that we will believe anything. It is that we will believe nothing if we cannot trust information we see online, then perhaps we cannot trust the people we meet. And when the possibility for trust in another human being is eroded, relationships cannot be formed. Nor can much of what we do in communities or our society be sustained without a common understanding of truth. Human relationships and the reciprocal ties which underpin our societal structures flounder, truth and trust.
It inspires between people and within societies must be cherished and protected. My Lords, it is easy to feel overwhelmed when considering the current and potential impacts of AI on life as we know it. What can be done to ensure that AI serves humanity and not degrades it? Uninventing AI is not an option, nor would we want to be without the many positive effects that it brings. So what are we to do with technology, which places great power in the hands of those who own control and use it? Power is not inherently wrong, but it carries great responsibility and often great risks for human being.
As we have seen repeatedly through history. Power corrupts and it takes people of great virtue and moral strength to withstand its temptations. Archbishop William Temple described a central occupation of Christian social thought as being man's dignity, tragedy and destiny. I have spoken today of humanity's inherent dignity, but it is our fallenness, the tragedy which makes technology's power so seductive and the risk of its abuse. So often our story in the Christian tradition. There is a call that overrides the lust for power.
It is the call to service, the distinctive Christian version of service is sacrifice, and Jesus's life, death and resurrection is the perfect example. This leads to the third temple's triad destiny. Jesus's sacrifice for us on the cross offers profound hope to all humanity in every season and every circumstance. It also offers for us a model of living a sacrificial lifestyle, one where with him at work in us, we choose to sacrifice our own personal ends in the service of others and begin to see the Kingdom come on earth.
Within this, I believe, lies the hope of our relationships, families, and societies at every level of society, from individuals making decisions about how to use AI personally and with our families and children, to business owners choosing where to use AI in their processes and how this affects their workers. To owners of AI companies choosing what technology they invent and the features or limits they place on this. We can choose to make decisions sacrificially in the service of our common humanity.
My Lords, we must cultivate the character to deal with the opportunities, challenges and temptations that such powerful technology places in our hands, personally and corporately involving people, communities, civil society. In conversations about AI, drawing on the wisdom and insights of faith, communities, technology, this revolutionary must not simply be unleashed on our societies. It must be developed with us and for us at a human pace, with human objectives. Above all, we must be people. Our common and glorious humanity.
We must put people a head of our profit, convenience or technology, progress at all costs to ensure that we harness AI to serve humanity to be an extraordinary tool in creation of a more just, abundant and hope filled world. My Lords, I beg to move.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Here. Question is that this motion be agreed. My Lords, I am grateful to the
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords, I am grateful to the Most Reverend Primate for securing this debate and for the way in which she's just introduced it. which she's just introduced it. Alongside the Pope's recent encyclical. Moral leadership in this issue is vital. I should this issue is vital. I should declare my interest in Century Tech, Good Notes and the Good Futures Foundation, and as a member of your Lordships Communications and Lordships Communications and Digital Committee, I should also confess that I have two main collaborators.
Both are called Claude. One is my wonderful wife, the other an AI product from anthropic. Both are great sounding boards. One is brilliant at advising me, looking after me and bringing me joy. The other helped me summarise the philosophical positions on relationships that
We find meaning and purpose in these relationships and in dignified work where we can partner with God to see his kingdom come on earth. We are human beings crowned with glory and honour here to glorify God. Perhaps one of the most profound areas of purpose is work. We are already seeing record numbers of 18 to 24 year olds, neither in education, training nor employment, and this is only set to worsen as angelic AI starts to come online. One area of the greatest gravity that this debate must address is how we, as the political class, are going to help young people navigate a rapidly changing world.
Yet I AI impacts our sense of meaning in other ways that go beyond work. A fundamental quality of a human being. One source of our wellbeing and sense of purpose is our ability to create, imagine, think, and invent. God placed humans in the Garden of Eden to look after the garden. He asked Adam to name the animals and species there. An inherently creative task. On one hand, AI can enhance human creativity and imagination. It puts more information people, networks, tools at our disposal.
It can increase efficiency and take away the burden of more repetitive and administrative tasks. But there are reasons to be concerned that AI is, in fact, having the opposite effect on our human abilities. There is already concerning evidence about the impact of technology, and particularly smartphones are having on the human ability to think and create. Mary Harrington wrote an article last year entitled thinking is Becoming a Luxury Good. It highlights evidence of the of human brain power decreasing without adult literacy scores levelling off and declining in the past decade.
In the majority of the OECD countries and some of the sharpest declines are among the poorest. Child literacy is also declining. Research shows that children who are exposed to more than two hours a day of recreational screen time have worse working memory processing speeds, attention levels, language skills and executive functions than children who are not. A study has shown that heavy users of AI struggle more with critical thinking as they stop thinking for themselves, and their capability atrophies.
And the irony is that while AI might make us feel like we are more creative at scale, AI's inherent nature means ideas will in fact become more predictable, unoriginal, homogenised. The human ability to think and create surpasses the capabilities of AI. We must work to ensure that our human abilities are given space to grow and thrive. To be the thinking creative beings God has made us to be. The Pope put this well last November during a live address to young people at the National Catholic Youth Centre in Indianapolis.
Be prudent, be wise. Be careful that your use of AI does not limit your true human growth. Use it in such a way that if it disappears tomorrow, you would still know how to think, how to create, how to act on your own, how to form authentic relationships. Remember, AI can never replace that unique gift that you are to the world. My third question is truth. The pilot notoriously asked Jesus this question as he was being sentenced to death according to the Christian faith.
Truth is not something we define ourselves or to alter to suit our own personal, political, or commercial ends. Truth is embodied in the person of Jesus Christ and expressed in loving God and loving others. Truth is a fundamental foundation on which our personal lives and societies are built. Without common truth, a flourishing common life becomes impossible. Generative AI cannot tell right from wrong fact, from fiction instead of truth. It produces a statistical echo of what has been said before in material it has been trained on.
It reinforces biases inherent in the way that it has been coded, as well as social biases present in the material it has been fed. It also simply invents information. One study found that chatbots did this in at least 3% of times, some as much as 27%. Even more concerning is that AI can be weaponised by malign actors. It is the perfect tool for someone wanting to create fake news. Its ability to disperse disinformation, discredit legitimate information, censor other information, and gain algorithms has the potential to distort and rewrite reality to prevent present fiction as fact and all with a veneer of objective truth.
It has the power to manipulate what we see and what we believe at a speed and a scale never seen before. What is presented often as a tool in the democratisation of knowledge, could all too easily become the tool of the autocrat, and the potential for real harm is still to be fully realised. There is a serious risk that this will lead to a fundamental breakdown in trust across society. The real danger is not our raising gullibility, but our raising cynicism.
It is not that we will believe anything. It is that we will believe nothing if we cannot trust information we see online, then perhaps we cannot trust the people we meet. And when the possibility for trust in another human being is eroded, relationships cannot be formed. Nor can much of what we do in communities or our society be sustained without a common understanding of truth. Human relationships and the reciprocal ties which underpin our societal structures flounder, truth and trust.
It inspires between people and within societies must be cherished and protected. My Lords, it is easy to feel overwhelmed when considering the current and potential impacts of AI on life as we know it. What can be done to ensure that AI serves humanity and not degrades it? Uninventing AI is not an option, nor would we want to be without the many positive effects that it brings. So what are we to do with technology, which places great power in the hands of those who own control and use it? Power is not inherently wrong, but it carries great responsibility and often great risks for human being.
As we have seen repeatedly through history. Power corrupts and it takes people of great virtue and moral strength to withstand its temptations. Archbishop William Temple described a central occupation of Christian social thought as being man's dignity, tragedy and destiny. I have spoken today of humanity's inherent dignity, but it is our fallenness, the tragedy which makes technology's power so seductive and the risk of its abuse. So often our story in the Christian tradition. There is a call that overrides the lust for power.
It is the call to service, the distinctive Christian version of service is sacrifice, and Jesus's life, death and resurrection is the perfect example. This leads to the third temple's triad destiny. Jesus's sacrifice for us on the cross offers profound hope to all humanity in every season and every circumstance. It also offers for us a model of living a sacrificial lifestyle, one where with him at work in us, we choose to sacrifice our own personal ends in the service of others and begin to see the Kingdom come on earth.
Within this, I believe, lies the hope of our relationships, families, and societies at every level of society, from individuals making decisions about how to use AI personally and with our families and children, to business owners choosing where to use AI in their processes and how this affects their workers. To owners of AI companies choosing what technology they invent and the features or limits they place on this. We can choose to make decisions sacrificially in the service of our common humanity.
My Lords, we must cultivate the character to deal with the opportunities, challenges and temptations that such powerful technology places in our hands, personally and corporately involving people, communities, civil society. In conversations about AI, drawing on the wisdom and insights of faith, communities, technology, this revolutionary must not simply be unleashed on our societies. It must be developed with us and for us at a human pace, with human objectives. Above all, we must be people. Our common and glorious humanity.
We must put people a head of our profit, convenience or technology, progress at all costs to ensure that we harness AI to serve humanity to be an extraordinary tool in creation of a more just, abundant and hope filled world. My Lords, I beg to move.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Here. Question is that this motion be agreed. My Lords, I am grateful to the
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords, I am grateful to the Most Reverend Primate for securing this debate and for the way in which she's just introduced it. which she's just introduced it. Alongside the Pope's recent encyclical. Moral leadership in this issue is vital. I should this issue is vital. I should declare my interest in Century Tech, Good Notes and the Good Futures Foundation, and as a member of your Lordships Communications and Lordships Communications and Digital Committee, I should also confess that I have two main collaborators.
Both are called Claude. One is my wonderful wife, the other an AI product from anthropic. Both are great sounding boards. One is brilliant at advising me, looking after me and bringing me joy. The other helped me summarise the philosophical positions on relationships that
10:27
Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour)
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Lord Knight of Weymouth (Labour)
inform my contribution to this debate. The genius of the likes of Geoffrey Hinton and Demis Hassabis have combined computer science and neuroscience to create machines neuroscience to create machines that outcompete what Aristotle described as the essence of being described as the essence of being human. The rational animal AI machines that learn, make choices and simulate friendship and and simulate friendship and intimacy. Yesterday's Guardian carried an interview with Joanna Stern, who spent a year inviting AI to do nearly everything for her.
Her encounter with a companion AI was most striking. What scared her, she said, was putting your emotions in the hands of machines. She came home and hugged her children, saying she never wanted them to have a relationship with a chatbot. That is already the already the reality for many male allies. UK surveyed 1000 boys aged 12 to 16 and found that 26% preferred the attention of an AI companion to real human connection. We must act urgently to prevent this consigning a generation to fester in their bedrooms, spiralling into mental health crisis as their addiction to phones gets deeper and darker.
AI has no ethics. None of Heidegger's mortality or self-awareness. We must listen to Jack Clark, co-founder of anthropic, yesterday calling for a brake on AI. There is a real risk of superintelligent AI systems being developed that could act autonomously from human control, learn their own language to collaborate with each other, and present an existential threat to our species. Big tech and AI are already accelerating a breakdown of trust and a rise of division. The attention economy pulls us into echo, echo chambers and away from human edited media.
It is simple to create fake content and distort truth. It is now easy for foreign actors, hackers and shameless populists to spark outrage, then protest, then violence, as seen this week. We must make it as easy to be pro-social with these tools as it is to be anti-social. We must do something about addiction by design. And then there is education and work. The Milburn Review is a wake up call. 1 million neat 7% of 16 to 14 year olds unfit for work and a growing mental health crisis among the young.
Our obsession with testing in schools is creating a system that alienates too many people, training them to absorb content and produce predicted answers. Much as we train AI models and which AI does better. Young people know that, and they're losing hope as they lose their place in the labour market. Whether or not they passed their tests. AI can help teachers and release them to focus on the human to human aspect of their endeavour. But curriculum, pedagogy and assessment must change to nurture empathy, judgement and care for oneself, for others and for the planet.
We don't yet know the impact of AI on work, but we do know work is really important for giving people routine, purpose and positivity as social animals. But we can predict that intelligent robots and software will make ever will take over more screen based work, more production and service delivery. I suspect we now need people who can thrive in a relational economy. We will value the personal when we are buying. We already crave authenticity. Live performance. The kitchen table at the restaurant for those that can afford it, and the bespoke service or product.
That is where the future lies. Future work will not be so much in data centres or in software development. It will be in human contact, unique service and quirky, quirky creation. We need an education system that stops standardising humans and nurtures individuals capable of love, empathy and judgement who can craft, create and communicate. Then our society will be resilient to the threat of AI and grasp its extraordinary opportunities. And a final comment, my Lords, all of this needs the Government and Parliament to have backbone and regulate AI.
There may be some that are worried about what that means for a US trade deal. My advice to Ministers is put the future of our society, our cohesion and our
**** Possible New Speaker ****
children first. By Lord Oates. Like the noble Lord, I congratulate the Most Reverend Primate on this very timely debate and her powerful speech, which will repay. Reading carefully. I also am delighted to follow the former leader of the Mendip District Council, who at Mendip District Council, who at least knows where North Hill is, and I agree with almost every word of his speech as well. I'm going to of his speech as well. I'm going to be accused, no doubt, of by some of my colleagues, perhaps even 1 or 2 sitting on my right of crying wolf, because I too am going to call for regulation.
But can I remind noble Lords that at the end of the fairy tale there is a real wolf? As recursive self-improvement arise as it may have already arrived, and machines can design machines more intelligent than themselves. Without our intervention and without our control. We are in a completely new world, partially President of Argentina and the Financial Times. Yesterday, as my late friend Jim Lovelock, he of the Gaia hypothesis, used to say at the end of his long life. Of course, machines are the next stage in evolution.
But it'll be all right. They'll keep some of us in a zoo for sentimental reasons. I'm not sure I entirely want to live in my grandchildren. To live in the zoo. As the Pope points out, the. In this industrial revolution, unlike the nuclear revolution, is different. It's more like the first one, because the origins of it all come in the private sector, and the governments are trailing along behind. Now there is huge. And amongst those founders there are very good people.
I happen to believe, like the. The noble Lord who has just spoken that in John, in Dennis, we have not only a near genius, but a man with a strong moral compass. And the work that he and John Jumper did to solve the protein folding problem with AlphaFold is of huge benefit to to medicine. But then there is a potential wolf. Have a look at Evo two. Also a triumph of huge potential for. Trained on, I believe, 9 trillion nucleotides. And it can read the whole entire blueprint of life.
It's in open source now. It has it has guardrails in it. But there are those who say those guardrails can already be got around. For those who want to seek to weaponize bio weapons. And if we need the humanities to remind us of the possibilities the most, the the Archbishop referred to C.S. Lewis. Have a look again at that hideous strength of 1945. Have a look at that. Rather un a rather different sort of writer, Gore Vidal, in his.
Kalki, who imagined a mad religious purifier wanting to purify the world of sin with a bioweapon. He wrote that in 1978 we need our humanities departments to help us think about the issues here and not leave it to the techies. A wonderful though many of them are, and our humanities departments in universities are under very great pressure at the moment. We need philosophers. We need people like Iain Mcgilchrist reminding us of the the left brain, right brain division.
We need the. We need the Pope. We need the Archbishop to remind us of humanity. And we need to move fast. A recent study by Barclays Bank predicts that between 70 and 90% of the jobs in installation and repair, manufacturing, construction and warehousing may be taken by humanoid robots. They will be humanoid because the world is built by us to fit humans, so they'll be humanoid robots over the next ten, 15 years, 70 to 90% of those jobs may be gone.
Now, we in this country, thanks partly to the patriotism of Demis Hassabis and Geoffrey Hinton and others, have a have a. We are players in this world. We have a constellation of of people and of start-ups and of people thinking about these issues, which makes us amongst the principal three in the world, I mean far behind America and China, but significant. And we are thanks to my to to the former Prime Minister, Rishi Rishi Sunak, in a good position in relation to regulation, because our AI s I is widely regarded as amongst the best of its kind in the world.
So yes, we must encourage our start-ups. Yes, we must find wider pools of of capital to support them, as the government is trying to do. To be fair to it, yes, we must think of regulation. And my final and short point is this we must not be nationalistic about this technology. We made that terrible mistake with nuclear. My predecessor of mine as Minister of Science, who subsequently much more distinguished than I sat on the Woolsack, said it was near treason to select the reactor rather than the reactor, because the first was American and the second was all British.
Poppycock. We should buy what is best. We should make the public sector an intelligent buyer and a careful buyer. But we should not fail to buy the best from wherever it is produced. My Lords, like the previous two speakers, I want to thank the right reverend
Her encounter with a companion AI was most striking. What scared her, she said, was putting your emotions in the hands of machines. She came home and hugged her children, saying she never wanted them to have a relationship with a chatbot. That is already the already the reality for many male allies. UK surveyed 1000 boys aged 12 to 16 and found that 26% preferred the attention of an AI companion to real human connection. We must act urgently to prevent this consigning a generation to fester in their bedrooms, spiralling into mental health crisis as their addiction to phones gets deeper and darker.
AI has no ethics. None of Heidegger's mortality or self-awareness. We must listen to Jack Clark, co-founder of anthropic, yesterday calling for a brake on AI. There is a real risk of superintelligent AI systems being developed that could act autonomously from human control, learn their own language to collaborate with each other, and present an existential threat to our species. Big tech and AI are already accelerating a breakdown of trust and a rise of division. The attention economy pulls us into echo, echo chambers and away from human edited media.
It is simple to create fake content and distort truth. It is now easy for foreign actors, hackers and shameless populists to spark outrage, then protest, then violence, as seen this week. We must make it as easy to be pro-social with these tools as it is to be anti-social. We must do something about addiction by design. And then there is education and work. The Milburn Review is a wake up call. 1 million neat 7% of 16 to 14 year olds unfit for work and a growing mental health crisis among the young.
Our obsession with testing in schools is creating a system that alienates too many people, training them to absorb content and produce predicted answers. Much as we train AI models and which AI does better. Young people know that, and they're losing hope as they lose their place in the labour market. Whether or not they passed their tests. AI can help teachers and release them to focus on the human to human aspect of their endeavour. But curriculum, pedagogy and assessment must change to nurture empathy, judgement and care for oneself, for others and for the planet.
We don't yet know the impact of AI on work, but we do know work is really important for giving people routine, purpose and positivity as social animals. But we can predict that intelligent robots and software will make ever will take over more screen based work, more production and service delivery. I suspect we now need people who can thrive in a relational economy. We will value the personal when we are buying. We already crave authenticity. Live performance. The kitchen table at the restaurant for those that can afford it, and the bespoke service or product.
That is where the future lies. Future work will not be so much in data centres or in software development. It will be in human contact, unique service and quirky, quirky creation. We need an education system that stops standardising humans and nurtures individuals capable of love, empathy and judgement who can craft, create and communicate. Then our society will be resilient to the threat of AI and grasp its extraordinary opportunities. And a final comment, my Lords, all of this needs the Government and Parliament to have backbone and regulate AI.
There may be some that are worried about what that means for a US trade deal. My advice to Ministers is put the future of our society, our cohesion and our
**** Possible New Speaker ****
children first. By Lord Oates. Like the noble Lord, I congratulate the Most Reverend Primate on this very timely debate and her powerful speech, which will repay. Reading carefully. I also am delighted to follow the former leader of the Mendip District Council, who at Mendip District Council, who at least knows where North Hill is, and I agree with almost every word of his speech as well. I'm going to of his speech as well. I'm going to be accused, no doubt, of by some of my colleagues, perhaps even 1 or 2 sitting on my right of crying wolf, because I too am going to call for regulation.
But can I remind noble Lords that at the end of the fairy tale there is a real wolf? As recursive self-improvement arise as it may have already arrived, and machines can design machines more intelligent than themselves. Without our intervention and without our control. We are in a completely new world, partially President of Argentina and the Financial Times. Yesterday, as my late friend Jim Lovelock, he of the Gaia hypothesis, used to say at the end of his long life. Of course, machines are the next stage in evolution.
But it'll be all right. They'll keep some of us in a zoo for sentimental reasons. I'm not sure I entirely want to live in my grandchildren. To live in the zoo. As the Pope points out, the. In this industrial revolution, unlike the nuclear revolution, is different. It's more like the first one, because the origins of it all come in the private sector, and the governments are trailing along behind. Now there is huge. And amongst those founders there are very good people.
I happen to believe, like the. The noble Lord who has just spoken that in John, in Dennis, we have not only a near genius, but a man with a strong moral compass. And the work that he and John Jumper did to solve the protein folding problem with AlphaFold is of huge benefit to to medicine. But then there is a potential wolf. Have a look at Evo two. Also a triumph of huge potential for. Trained on, I believe, 9 trillion nucleotides. And it can read the whole entire blueprint of life.
It's in open source now. It has it has guardrails in it. But there are those who say those guardrails can already be got around. For those who want to seek to weaponize bio weapons. And if we need the humanities to remind us of the possibilities the most, the the Archbishop referred to C.S. Lewis. Have a look again at that hideous strength of 1945. Have a look at that. Rather un a rather different sort of writer, Gore Vidal, in his.
Kalki, who imagined a mad religious purifier wanting to purify the world of sin with a bioweapon. He wrote that in 1978 we need our humanities departments to help us think about the issues here and not leave it to the techies. A wonderful though many of them are, and our humanities departments in universities are under very great pressure at the moment. We need philosophers. We need people like Iain Mcgilchrist reminding us of the the left brain, right brain division.
We need the. We need the Pope. We need the Archbishop to remind us of humanity. And we need to move fast. A recent study by Barclays Bank predicts that between 70 and 90% of the jobs in installation and repair, manufacturing, construction and warehousing may be taken by humanoid robots. They will be humanoid because the world is built by us to fit humans, so they'll be humanoid robots over the next ten, 15 years, 70 to 90% of those jobs may be gone.
Now, we in this country, thanks partly to the patriotism of Demis Hassabis and Geoffrey Hinton and others, have a have a. We are players in this world. We have a constellation of of people and of start-ups and of people thinking about these issues, which makes us amongst the principal three in the world, I mean far behind America and China, but significant. And we are thanks to my to to the former Prime Minister, Rishi Rishi Sunak, in a good position in relation to regulation, because our AI s I is widely regarded as amongst the best of its kind in the world.
So yes, we must encourage our start-ups. Yes, we must find wider pools of of capital to support them, as the government is trying to do. To be fair to it, yes, we must think of regulation. And my final and short point is this we must not be nationalistic about this technology. We made that terrible mistake with nuclear. My predecessor of mine as Minister of Science, who subsequently much more distinguished than I sat on the Woolsack, said it was near treason to select the reactor rather than the reactor, because the first was American and the second was all British.
Poppycock. We should buy what is best. We should make the public sector an intelligent buyer and a careful buyer. But we should not fail to buy the best from wherever it is produced. My Lords, like the previous two speakers, I want to thank the right reverend
10:37
10:37
Lord Alderdice (Liberal Democrat)
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Lord Alderdice (Liberal Democrat)
it's already been said, it's quite striking that she chose this topic as His Holiness. The Pope also as His Holiness. The Pope also chose this topic for his first encyclical because it is a matter encyclical because it is a matter of great concern. Before I come to the concerns, I do want to emphasise that there is a very emphasise that there is a very positive dimension to all of this. Technological development has brought us huge benefits in communication, in medicine, in so many aspects of our lives, and.
But sometimes we forget that when we talk about artificial intelligence, we're talking about something that is knowledge based and cognitive and human intelligence is something different from that. Human intelligence involves the emotional dimension of us. And it is that very fact that enables us to operate in a different kind of way. So rather than simply reflecting on the challenges and dangers that there are from technology, and of course, it has brought us many benefits, but many dangers as we look at things like environmental crisis or the potential for nuclear holocaust, these have also been brought to us by technological development.
And we need always to manage and control it. As we come across London these days, we may reflect on the fact that driving in a car isn't much quicker actually, nowadays than a horse drawn carriage was a hundred years ago. But even so, we have the capacity for speed, and so we have to regulate the speed. Why not? Because speed is bad, but because human beings can only react at a certain speed and at a certain rate. We can only adapt ourselves at a certain rate.
There are limitations to being a human being, as well as advantages and benefits. And sometimes the benefits we get actually lead us to difficulties. I was a psychiatrist for a very long time, and I dealt with young people with addictions for a period. One of the reasons that medications become addictive is not because they are unsuccessful, but precisely because they're extremely successful at, for example, getting rid of anxiety. And therefore people quickly get used to reducing their level of anxiety with medication rather than with psychological mechanisms and with relationships with other people.
So it is the very effectiveness of one dimension of thinking that makes this dangerous for us. If we look at the human dimension, we need to understand that, for example, speed and a response, albeit sometimes not a correct response, is not something that human beings function well with. When, for example, we lose someone, we need a period of time to manage our grief in relation with others. This is not a component of artificial intelligence. In order that we have the possibility of hope, we need to understand the possibility of frustration and how time the time it takes to accomplish things.
The parents who create some of the greatest problems for the young people nowadays are not only those that do not give them appropriate attention, but those who give them too much attention. Winnicott devised the idea of good enough parenting, and one sees many parents who react immediately to children respond to every wish that they have. Don't consider possible and do not understand that this is harmful to their young people, because it does not help them to develop the capacity to deal patiently with problems, reflect upon them, deal with grief, and find hope emerging.
None of these are qualities that artificial intelligence either has or has the capacity to develop. And so I would make an appeal that as we talk about artificial intelligence, we should understand it to be something fundamentally different from how we function as human beings. And the more deeply we can understand how we function as individuals and as communities of people, the better we will be in a position to address the challenges that arise from artificial intelligence. And it's not just that there are problems for the future.
It is absolutely clear that we are already facing many difficulties that emerged from the fact that young people now look around and they see a world where there is environmental threat, where there is the possibility of nuclear war, where they don't understand how they're going to deal with artificial intelligence. And I think we ought to reflect on whether the epidemic of adolescent mental health problems, ADHD and autism, are these things not related to anything? Are they only better diagnosis or are the things that are happening that are actually making life difficult for the next generation?
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Very, very good, very good. And my Lords, I to thank the Most Reverend Primate for her wonderful introduction and indeed acknowledge the intervention of His acknowledge the intervention of His Holiness Pope Leo, who I had the privilege of meeting at the Vatican privilege of meeting at the Vatican on this subject some months ago. My Lords, the relationship between humanity and AI is often described humanity and AI is often described through the language of alignment as if it was a technical
But sometimes we forget that when we talk about artificial intelligence, we're talking about something that is knowledge based and cognitive and human intelligence is something different from that. Human intelligence involves the emotional dimension of us. And it is that very fact that enables us to operate in a different kind of way. So rather than simply reflecting on the challenges and dangers that there are from technology, and of course, it has brought us many benefits, but many dangers as we look at things like environmental crisis or the potential for nuclear holocaust, these have also been brought to us by technological development.
And we need always to manage and control it. As we come across London these days, we may reflect on the fact that driving in a car isn't much quicker actually, nowadays than a horse drawn carriage was a hundred years ago. But even so, we have the capacity for speed, and so we have to regulate the speed. Why not? Because speed is bad, but because human beings can only react at a certain speed and at a certain rate. We can only adapt ourselves at a certain rate.
There are limitations to being a human being, as well as advantages and benefits. And sometimes the benefits we get actually lead us to difficulties. I was a psychiatrist for a very long time, and I dealt with young people with addictions for a period. One of the reasons that medications become addictive is not because they are unsuccessful, but precisely because they're extremely successful at, for example, getting rid of anxiety. And therefore people quickly get used to reducing their level of anxiety with medication rather than with psychological mechanisms and with relationships with other people.
So it is the very effectiveness of one dimension of thinking that makes this dangerous for us. If we look at the human dimension, we need to understand that, for example, speed and a response, albeit sometimes not a correct response, is not something that human beings function well with. When, for example, we lose someone, we need a period of time to manage our grief in relation with others. This is not a component of artificial intelligence. In order that we have the possibility of hope, we need to understand the possibility of frustration and how time the time it takes to accomplish things.
The parents who create some of the greatest problems for the young people nowadays are not only those that do not give them appropriate attention, but those who give them too much attention. Winnicott devised the idea of good enough parenting, and one sees many parents who react immediately to children respond to every wish that they have. Don't consider possible and do not understand that this is harmful to their young people, because it does not help them to develop the capacity to deal patiently with problems, reflect upon them, deal with grief, and find hope emerging.
None of these are qualities that artificial intelligence either has or has the capacity to develop. And so I would make an appeal that as we talk about artificial intelligence, we should understand it to be something fundamentally different from how we function as human beings. And the more deeply we can understand how we function as individuals and as communities of people, the better we will be in a position to address the challenges that arise from artificial intelligence. And it's not just that there are problems for the future.
It is absolutely clear that we are already facing many difficulties that emerged from the fact that young people now look around and they see a world where there is environmental threat, where there is the possibility of nuclear war, where they don't understand how they're going to deal with artificial intelligence. And I think we ought to reflect on whether the epidemic of adolescent mental health problems, ADHD and autism, are these things not related to anything? Are they only better diagnosis or are the things that are happening that are actually making life difficult for the next generation?
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Very, very good, very good. And my Lords, I to thank the Most Reverend Primate for her wonderful introduction and indeed acknowledge the intervention of His acknowledge the intervention of His Holiness Pope Leo, who I had the privilege of meeting at the Vatican privilege of meeting at the Vatican on this subject some months ago. My Lords, the relationship between humanity and AI is often described humanity and AI is often described through the language of alignment as if it was a technical
10:43
Baroness Kidron (Crossbench)
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Baroness Kidron (Crossbench)
requirement. An AI system is considered aligned if it advances the intended objectives and the intended objectives and misaligned if it pursues unintended consequences. But before we ask consequences. But before we ask whether machine is pursuing the intended goals, we must first ask intended goals, we must first ask who gets to define those goals? And that is not a technical question. that is not a technical question. That is a political question. AI is brilliant. It's able to identify cancers, anticipate environmental disasters, accelerate scientific research and improve productivity.
It will transform human life. But technology is never neutral. Every technology reflects decision about who benefits, who bears the risks, and who gets to decide. And every other industry, from pharmaceuticals to aviation, from nuclear power to the sewer system, is regulated to ensure that private gain is balanced against the public good. Yet the tech sector has spent 30 years arguing that it should be the exception, and it continues to make that argument about AI. But we have already seen the cost of tech exceptionalism on the bodies and minds of our children in our public discourse, our deserted high streets, and the weakening trust in our democratic institutions.
Those outcomes were not technical errors. They were predictable consequences of a business model designed to maximise engagement, capture markets and minds, and become indispensable, if unreliable, intermediaries to all aspects of human life. The systems were aligned perfectly. They did exactly what they were designed to do, but they were aligned with commercial incentives rather than the public interest. Or, as Pope Leo would put it, the common good. And that matters because many of the same companies, investors and assumptions are now shaping the next generation of intelligent systems.
And while much of the public debate focuses on future dangers of superintelligence, joblessness and the world of unprovable truth, those are the risks it risks distracting us from. The more immediate AI is already shaping our economy and society. It influences what we see, what we believe, and increasingly, what opportunities are available to us. And it is already transferring huge sums of money from the UK to Silicon Valley, while concentrating control over increasingly essential infrastructure in the hands of a very small number of corporations.
We are living through an extraordinary moment in which perhaps the greatest technological opportunity in human history is also becoming one of the greatest transfers of power and wealth in history. A heist in plain sight. Our religious leaders are asking us to judge artificial intelligence, not by what it can do, but by whether it serves human dignity and common good. And that sounds simple, but it is truly radical because it means asking political questions about how we deploy technology.
Does it distribute power? Does it strengthen families? Does it create dignified work? Does it increase human agency? And ultimately, who are the beneficiaries? And beyond that, it demands political leadership in this House. We have tried to provide that leadership. We have argued that citizens should benefit from the value of their creative labour, that the data in our public institutions should be treated as a sovereign asset. That computer generated evidence should be reliable, that AI systems should be tested to ensure they cannot create child sexual abuse.
We have argued that chatbots should be subject to the law like every other actor in society. My Lords, that is what a lineman looks like in practice, not a technical specification, a democratic one. So I ask the Minister to explain why the government has repeatedly rejected measures designed to secure democratic oversight, accountability and sovereignty, and what plans it has to ensure that we live under the rules of UK democracy and not those of Silicon
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Valley. Terms of service. My Lords, it's a great honour to speak in this debate. I think it's going to sound increasingly like an going to sound increasingly like an echo chamber in the themes that are raised. But to follow the noble raised. But to follow the noble Lady with all she has done in this sector is absolutely remarkable. Let me start, though, by paying tribute to the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a magnificent speech, and I speak on behalf of speech, and I speak on behalf of many, I believe, by saying how delighted we are that she is the Archbishop of Canterbury because she learned humanity at the bedside.
Those of us who've been involved in health know that it's the nurse who really is closest to the patient and the patient at the time of suffering and difficulty and frailty, and that shone through her remarks today. The privilege, indeed, that she is our Archbishop, and how all of us, I think, pay tribute to the topic of the day, following on from the Pope's encyclical. But she can't have all the glory, because the Bishop of Oxford deserves a great deal of recognition for his steadfast tenacity on the importance of ethics in relation to AI and human
It will transform human life. But technology is never neutral. Every technology reflects decision about who benefits, who bears the risks, and who gets to decide. And every other industry, from pharmaceuticals to aviation, from nuclear power to the sewer system, is regulated to ensure that private gain is balanced against the public good. Yet the tech sector has spent 30 years arguing that it should be the exception, and it continues to make that argument about AI. But we have already seen the cost of tech exceptionalism on the bodies and minds of our children in our public discourse, our deserted high streets, and the weakening trust in our democratic institutions.
Those outcomes were not technical errors. They were predictable consequences of a business model designed to maximise engagement, capture markets and minds, and become indispensable, if unreliable, intermediaries to all aspects of human life. The systems were aligned perfectly. They did exactly what they were designed to do, but they were aligned with commercial incentives rather than the public interest. Or, as Pope Leo would put it, the common good. And that matters because many of the same companies, investors and assumptions are now shaping the next generation of intelligent systems.
And while much of the public debate focuses on future dangers of superintelligence, joblessness and the world of unprovable truth, those are the risks it risks distracting us from. The more immediate AI is already shaping our economy and society. It influences what we see, what we believe, and increasingly, what opportunities are available to us. And it is already transferring huge sums of money from the UK to Silicon Valley, while concentrating control over increasingly essential infrastructure in the hands of a very small number of corporations.
We are living through an extraordinary moment in which perhaps the greatest technological opportunity in human history is also becoming one of the greatest transfers of power and wealth in history. A heist in plain sight. Our religious leaders are asking us to judge artificial intelligence, not by what it can do, but by whether it serves human dignity and common good. And that sounds simple, but it is truly radical because it means asking political questions about how we deploy technology.
Does it distribute power? Does it strengthen families? Does it create dignified work? Does it increase human agency? And ultimately, who are the beneficiaries? And beyond that, it demands political leadership in this House. We have tried to provide that leadership. We have argued that citizens should benefit from the value of their creative labour, that the data in our public institutions should be treated as a sovereign asset. That computer generated evidence should be reliable, that AI systems should be tested to ensure they cannot create child sexual abuse.
We have argued that chatbots should be subject to the law like every other actor in society. My Lords, that is what a lineman looks like in practice, not a technical specification, a democratic one. So I ask the Minister to explain why the government has repeatedly rejected measures designed to secure democratic oversight, accountability and sovereignty, and what plans it has to ensure that we live under the rules of UK democracy and not those of Silicon
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Valley. Terms of service. My Lords, it's a great honour to speak in this debate. I think it's going to sound increasingly like an going to sound increasingly like an echo chamber in the themes that are raised. But to follow the noble raised. But to follow the noble Lady with all she has done in this sector is absolutely remarkable. Let me start, though, by paying tribute to the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury. It was a magnificent speech, and I speak on behalf of speech, and I speak on behalf of many, I believe, by saying how delighted we are that she is the Archbishop of Canterbury because she learned humanity at the bedside.
Those of us who've been involved in health know that it's the nurse who really is closest to the patient and the patient at the time of suffering and difficulty and frailty, and that shone through her remarks today. The privilege, indeed, that she is our Archbishop, and how all of us, I think, pay tribute to the topic of the day, following on from the Pope's encyclical. But she can't have all the glory, because the Bishop of Oxford deserves a great deal of recognition for his steadfast tenacity on the importance of ethics in relation to AI and human
10:49
Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Conservative)
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Baroness Bottomley of Nettlestone (Conservative)
centred AI, and indeed, the former Archbishop Welby, who made such a big and profound difference for so big and profound difference for so many of us. He supported the Rome Call for AI ethics in 2004. So Call for AI ethics in 2004. So there's a continuity about it now, as the right most reverend primate as the right most reverend primate said, artificial intelligence already offers enormous benefits to humanity across science education, humanity across science education, industry. The potential to increase productivity, solve complex problems and improve quality of life.
And we do welcome those advances and nowhere more, of course, than in health care. As she said, AI is helping clinicians detect diseases, personalised treatments and improve patient outcomes. It's transforming medical research. The work of DeepMind, through AlphaFold and of Isomorphic labs, has demonstrated AI's remarkable potential to accelerate drug delivery, predicting the structure of proteins, helping researchers identify promising new treatments at unprecedented speed. What once took years of painstaking laboratory work and increasingly be accomplished in a fraction of the time, bringing hope to millions.
It reminds us that AI isn't just a technological advance. It's got the potential to become the greatest tool for human flourishing ever created. If harnessed wisely, it can help us live longer, healthier, and productive lives. But of course, innovation and governments must go hand in hand. This week, a noble Lords have been discussing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. It was my first bill when I first became a Minister. This was a new technology creating a life outside the body, and it needed different regulation, subtle, complex and long lasting.
Now it needs updating. Well, that was difficult to organise the regulation. This is a whole new challenge, but it has to happen. We have to strike the right balance between encouraging the development of technologies that benefit humanity, but ensuring they don't undermine human dignity, security, freedom or wellbeing. And we need to not only to address the problems of AI that are here and now, but to understand and forestall the problems of AI that are to come, problems that could dwarf those we face today.
There are the fast burn problems of advanced AI in the hands of bad actors, or the loss of control of an advanced AI that are the slow burn problems that we're just starting to confront. The erosion of jobs leading to many people being deprived of a job, a career, a sense of purpose in their lives, and the threat of gradual disempowerment and enfeeblement of human beings. As has been said, now, no one knows how to avoid the fast burn problems. Supposing those potentially catastrophic threats are solved, then it's the slow burn problems we have to contend with rather than addressing the problems today, troubling as they are, we must show our concern for the rapidly advancing future, a future we have not asked for, a future being imposed on us by a few tech Barons, backed by massive amounts of money.
As the Bishop of Oxford rightly asked in his response to the King's speech. Where are the laws binding development on superintelligent AI? Those who want to have the sleepless night only need to read you. Koski and Surrey's recent book, A Sleepless Night Several Sleepless Nights. Do we want AI that's more capable than a human in all significant respects, or an AI that none of us know how to control? Enlightened governance, transparency and safety measures are not obstacle innovation.
They are essential means we must address the potentials of the future. Now humanity has a challenge on its hands. It's one we can make meet, but not only if we combine wisdom with innovation, ethics of progress, and a steadfast commitment to ensuring that technology remains the servant of humanity and not its master.
And we do welcome those advances and nowhere more, of course, than in health care. As she said, AI is helping clinicians detect diseases, personalised treatments and improve patient outcomes. It's transforming medical research. The work of DeepMind, through AlphaFold and of Isomorphic labs, has demonstrated AI's remarkable potential to accelerate drug delivery, predicting the structure of proteins, helping researchers identify promising new treatments at unprecedented speed. What once took years of painstaking laboratory work and increasingly be accomplished in a fraction of the time, bringing hope to millions.
It reminds us that AI isn't just a technological advance. It's got the potential to become the greatest tool for human flourishing ever created. If harnessed wisely, it can help us live longer, healthier, and productive lives. But of course, innovation and governments must go hand in hand. This week, a noble Lords have been discussing the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act. It was my first bill when I first became a Minister. This was a new technology creating a life outside the body, and it needed different regulation, subtle, complex and long lasting.
Now it needs updating. Well, that was difficult to organise the regulation. This is a whole new challenge, but it has to happen. We have to strike the right balance between encouraging the development of technologies that benefit humanity, but ensuring they don't undermine human dignity, security, freedom or wellbeing. And we need to not only to address the problems of AI that are here and now, but to understand and forestall the problems of AI that are to come, problems that could dwarf those we face today.
There are the fast burn problems of advanced AI in the hands of bad actors, or the loss of control of an advanced AI that are the slow burn problems that we're just starting to confront. The erosion of jobs leading to many people being deprived of a job, a career, a sense of purpose in their lives, and the threat of gradual disempowerment and enfeeblement of human beings. As has been said, now, no one knows how to avoid the fast burn problems. Supposing those potentially catastrophic threats are solved, then it's the slow burn problems we have to contend with rather than addressing the problems today, troubling as they are, we must show our concern for the rapidly advancing future, a future we have not asked for, a future being imposed on us by a few tech Barons, backed by massive amounts of money.
As the Bishop of Oxford rightly asked in his response to the King's speech. Where are the laws binding development on superintelligent AI? Those who want to have the sleepless night only need to read you. Koski and Surrey's recent book, A Sleepless Night Several Sleepless Nights. Do we want AI that's more capable than a human in all significant respects, or an AI that none of us know how to control? Enlightened governance, transparency and safety measures are not obstacle innovation.
They are essential means we must address the potentials of the future. Now humanity has a challenge on its hands. It's one we can make meet, but not only if we combine wisdom with innovation, ethics of progress, and a steadfast commitment to ensuring that technology remains the servant of humanity and not its master.
10:53
Lord Nagaraju (Labour)
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Lord Nagaraju (Labour)
Yeah. Most Reverend Primate for bringing this timely debate. I declare my interests as a technology consultant and advisor on AI policy, director of companies and organisations involved in AI and AI governance. I support this move because AI is not merely another tool, it is increasingly a mediator of work, knowledge, attention and relationships. Unlike earlier technologies, AI moves at digital speed and can spread at very low marginal cost through existing digital infrastructure. Entering our phones, homes, classrooms, hospitals and friendships, automating not only labour but judgement, creativity, companionship and trust.
A small number of firms and countries now command much of the model's compute and data on which others are increasingly relying upon. This makes AI not only an economic race, but a governance challenge. Like all nations, we cannot afford to fall behind. AI will be central to productivity, public service reform and national competitiveness. The office for Budget Responsibility estimates that around 40% of UK occupations are exposed to AI, with most likely to be complemented rather than replaced.
We must therefore be ambitious, innovative and open to enterprise. Innovation and responsibility are not opposites. Trustworthy AI should become one of Britain's competitive strengths. The dilemma is clear move too slowly and we risk economic decline and dependence move too quickly, and we embed systems that erode dignity, privacy, fairness and trust. Governance must include technologists and investors, but must not be left to them alone. Ethicists, teachers, parents, clinicians, workers, entrepreneurs, civil society, young people and parliamentarians must all have a voice.
AI may deepen existing divides. Countries and companies with compute data, talent and capital will shape the terms of use. Communities with access to a enhanced education, health care and employment may pull ahead, while those exposed mainly to surveillance, misinformation or job disruption may further fall behind. Successful companies create jobs, wealth, tools and opportunity. But democracy must be capable of scrutinising concentration of economic, informational and infrastructural power, moving at the speed. More than half of the people in the UK age 16 and over use generative AI.
Around 1 in 8 users report using AI as someone to talk to or as a friend, and this figure is even higher in the United States. Evidence of long term effects is still limited, but the risk is clear. Digital platforms are already already shaping identity and social habits, especially among young people. However, generative AI goes further. It talks back, remembers, flatters, and can simulate intimacy. Young people may increasingly turn it for advice, reassurance and help with social situations.
Roles once shaped by parents, peers and teachers. AI companions do not require reciprocity. Real relationships involve patience, disagreement and obligation. We should not discover too late that human development has been reshaped by systems that simulate care without sharing responsibility. AI is benefits are real in the NHS, AI can reduce administrative burdens, triage referrals, predict missed appointments, and support cancer screening in education. It can help teachers plan lessons and create resources, though it must not weaken teacher pupil relationships or critical thinking.
We must also plan for environmental cost. AI data centres need significant electricity and water. This is not an argument against AI infrastructure, but for building it with resilient energy and water planning from the start. Some of these questions cannot be answered within our borders alone. In July, the United Nations will host the first global dialogue on AI governance in Geneva, which I hope to attend. The UK should shape global rules that are innovative, entrepreneurial and at the same time democratic, humane and inclusive.
My Lords, the question raised by artificial intelligence, the questions raised by artificial intelligence are not only technical or economic. These are about what kind of society we wish to live in, how work is valued, how children learn and form relationships, and how innovation and enterprise can serve the common good. I welcome the government's efforts to place the UK at the forefront of safe and responsible AI. As the work
**** Possible New Speaker ****
develops, I hope Ministers will continue to consider Eyes wider social impacts, including on children, loneliness, education, work. Public services, competition and democratic trust and also ensure that Parliament remains engaged in that remains engaged in that conversation. The motion before us invites us to take these questions seriously and to bring together expertise from across the society. I support it wholeheartedly and hope this debate contributes to the government's wider work, and to the national and international conversation about what AI is, whom it serves, and how can it be directed towards the common good.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Very good, my Lord. May I also join the chorus in thanks to the Most Reverend Primate for her excellent and thoughtful introduction to this debate, and, of course, the impeccable timing, as we've already heard from Lord as we've already heard from Lord Knight, anthropic founder has called for a brake on AI. At the same time we're hearing from same time we're hearing from Cambridge, artificial intelligence has actually developed a vaccine. I would argue, and I hope the Most
A small number of firms and countries now command much of the model's compute and data on which others are increasingly relying upon. This makes AI not only an economic race, but a governance challenge. Like all nations, we cannot afford to fall behind. AI will be central to productivity, public service reform and national competitiveness. The office for Budget Responsibility estimates that around 40% of UK occupations are exposed to AI, with most likely to be complemented rather than replaced.
We must therefore be ambitious, innovative and open to enterprise. Innovation and responsibility are not opposites. Trustworthy AI should become one of Britain's competitive strengths. The dilemma is clear move too slowly and we risk economic decline and dependence move too quickly, and we embed systems that erode dignity, privacy, fairness and trust. Governance must include technologists and investors, but must not be left to them alone. Ethicists, teachers, parents, clinicians, workers, entrepreneurs, civil society, young people and parliamentarians must all have a voice.
AI may deepen existing divides. Countries and companies with compute data, talent and capital will shape the terms of use. Communities with access to a enhanced education, health care and employment may pull ahead, while those exposed mainly to surveillance, misinformation or job disruption may further fall behind. Successful companies create jobs, wealth, tools and opportunity. But democracy must be capable of scrutinising concentration of economic, informational and infrastructural power, moving at the speed. More than half of the people in the UK age 16 and over use generative AI.
Around 1 in 8 users report using AI as someone to talk to or as a friend, and this figure is even higher in the United States. Evidence of long term effects is still limited, but the risk is clear. Digital platforms are already already shaping identity and social habits, especially among young people. However, generative AI goes further. It talks back, remembers, flatters, and can simulate intimacy. Young people may increasingly turn it for advice, reassurance and help with social situations.
Roles once shaped by parents, peers and teachers. AI companions do not require reciprocity. Real relationships involve patience, disagreement and obligation. We should not discover too late that human development has been reshaped by systems that simulate care without sharing responsibility. AI is benefits are real in the NHS, AI can reduce administrative burdens, triage referrals, predict missed appointments, and support cancer screening in education. It can help teachers plan lessons and create resources, though it must not weaken teacher pupil relationships or critical thinking.
We must also plan for environmental cost. AI data centres need significant electricity and water. This is not an argument against AI infrastructure, but for building it with resilient energy and water planning from the start. Some of these questions cannot be answered within our borders alone. In July, the United Nations will host the first global dialogue on AI governance in Geneva, which I hope to attend. The UK should shape global rules that are innovative, entrepreneurial and at the same time democratic, humane and inclusive.
My Lords, the question raised by artificial intelligence, the questions raised by artificial intelligence are not only technical or economic. These are about what kind of society we wish to live in, how work is valued, how children learn and form relationships, and how innovation and enterprise can serve the common good. I welcome the government's efforts to place the UK at the forefront of safe and responsible AI. As the work
**** Possible New Speaker ****
develops, I hope Ministers will continue to consider Eyes wider social impacts, including on children, loneliness, education, work. Public services, competition and democratic trust and also ensure that Parliament remains engaged in that remains engaged in that conversation. The motion before us invites us to take these questions seriously and to bring together expertise from across the society. I support it wholeheartedly and hope this debate contributes to the government's wider work, and to the national and international conversation about what AI is, whom it serves, and how can it be directed towards the common good.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Very good, my Lord. May I also join the chorus in thanks to the Most Reverend Primate for her excellent and thoughtful introduction to this debate, and, of course, the impeccable timing, as we've already heard from Lord as we've already heard from Lord Knight, anthropic founder has called for a brake on AI. At the same time we're hearing from same time we're hearing from Cambridge, artificial intelligence has actually developed a vaccine. I would argue, and I hope the Most
11:00
Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Conservative)
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Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon (Conservative)
would argue, and I hope the Most Reverend Primate agrees with me. Divine intervention is at work putting God at the centre of our thinking. Of course, as a person of faith, I also accept that technology shapes our life in the modern age. Yet behind these changes, we should never forget, as we've been reminded by a number of speakers, that it is the human mind that gave birth to that new idea, that technological advancement. Now, I grew up in a very close knit family.
Discussions around the dinner table were not an option. They were not encouraged. It was vital. It was part of our fabric. My father likened the advent of the smartphone, the mobile phone age as the start of the decline of the art of human conversation. Calculations, he said, were not for calculators. They were for the mind. He was an accountant. Yet, to my children's generation, AI is and will remain and become a greater part of their lives. I recall my youngest son, who will be embarrassed by reference to him, expressing total disbelief that my childhood had no mobile phones, no internet.
Indeed, he refers to that golden age in my father's words, in his words, the ancient times when daddy was a child. Yet behind this humour lies a very serious challenge. AI is no longer a distant concept. It is not science fiction that reality presents extraordinary opportunities. And in terms of defining human relationships, an ever evolving challenge. In faith, I've seen AI search Scripture provide visual and interactive learning at a touch of a button. AI is changing learning. As we've already heard, remote villages access knowledge.
Once the bastion of the greatest universities in medicine, doctors diagnose and treat illnesses quickly and indeed remotely. Scientific discoveries may take months, not years, and the potential for human advancement through AI is incredible. To quote Captain Kirk of Star Trek V, the final frontier is being realised not just in space, but right here on earth. Technology has been the most powerful. Not when it changes operations, when it changes human behaviour. The printing press, the telephone transformed communication. The internet transformed connectivity.
AI transforms relationships. And that's why we must ask not what AI can do, but what it should do. Human relationships are built on qualities that cannot be easily coded trust, empathy, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness, and love. These, as the Most Reverend Primate remind us, are not algorithms. They are deeply human qualities fostered by the beating heart, the human mind, lived experiences. An AI system may tell us what someone is feeling, but understanding sorrow is not the same as experiencing grief.
Simulating compassion is not the same as feeling it. A machine may generate a sympathetic response, but it is the human heart that truly cares. Yet we must acknowledge that AI may help strengthen relationships. As we've heard, for families, for people with disabilities. Used wisely, AI will bring people together. Use poorly. It can drive them apart. My Lords, we are already seeing a world where individuals can spend hours connected digitally whilst feeling increasingly disconnected emotionally. Lord Alderdice pointed. At that point out, a machine becomes easier to talk to than another person.
We may lose some of the patience essential to human relationships. After all, unlike AI, our spouses, our children, our friends, our colleagues do not arrive. I'm sure the noble Lord Knight agrees me with me with an update settings or refresh button. Some may seek it. I know my wife and my absence as a foreign Minister often probably sought it unsuccessfully. I would argue yet, but perhaps that is precisely the point. Human relationships, as we've heard, derive their value from their imperfections.
The awkward conversations, the misunderstandings, the disagreements, the look. These are not flaws in humanity. They are part of what makes us exactly that human. We must ensure that innovation is guided by ethics, that regulation keeps pace with capability, and that human dignity remains at the centre of technological process. And therefore, I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, what is the government's plans on ensuring that these principles are upheld? What conversations are we having with partners? Because in conclusion, my Lords, we must teach future generations that artificial intelligence may be able to answer some questions.
But its human intelligence, wisdom and compassion that gives meaning to our lives. At least that's the argument my wife and I present to our three human wonders at home. Their response? Not convinced. But the future, my Lords, should be a partnership in which technology AI enhances what is the best in humanity. As the Most Reverend reminded us. If we get that balance right, artificial intelligence will not diminish human relationships. It will give us perhaps even more reason to value them.
Discussions around the dinner table were not an option. They were not encouraged. It was vital. It was part of our fabric. My father likened the advent of the smartphone, the mobile phone age as the start of the decline of the art of human conversation. Calculations, he said, were not for calculators. They were for the mind. He was an accountant. Yet, to my children's generation, AI is and will remain and become a greater part of their lives. I recall my youngest son, who will be embarrassed by reference to him, expressing total disbelief that my childhood had no mobile phones, no internet.
Indeed, he refers to that golden age in my father's words, in his words, the ancient times when daddy was a child. Yet behind this humour lies a very serious challenge. AI is no longer a distant concept. It is not science fiction that reality presents extraordinary opportunities. And in terms of defining human relationships, an ever evolving challenge. In faith, I've seen AI search Scripture provide visual and interactive learning at a touch of a button. AI is changing learning. As we've already heard, remote villages access knowledge.
Once the bastion of the greatest universities in medicine, doctors diagnose and treat illnesses quickly and indeed remotely. Scientific discoveries may take months, not years, and the potential for human advancement through AI is incredible. To quote Captain Kirk of Star Trek V, the final frontier is being realised not just in space, but right here on earth. Technology has been the most powerful. Not when it changes operations, when it changes human behaviour. The printing press, the telephone transformed communication. The internet transformed connectivity.
AI transforms relationships. And that's why we must ask not what AI can do, but what it should do. Human relationships are built on qualities that cannot be easily coded trust, empathy, compassion, loyalty, forgiveness, and love. These, as the Most Reverend Primate remind us, are not algorithms. They are deeply human qualities fostered by the beating heart, the human mind, lived experiences. An AI system may tell us what someone is feeling, but understanding sorrow is not the same as experiencing grief.
Simulating compassion is not the same as feeling it. A machine may generate a sympathetic response, but it is the human heart that truly cares. Yet we must acknowledge that AI may help strengthen relationships. As we've heard, for families, for people with disabilities. Used wisely, AI will bring people together. Use poorly. It can drive them apart. My Lords, we are already seeing a world where individuals can spend hours connected digitally whilst feeling increasingly disconnected emotionally. Lord Alderdice pointed. At that point out, a machine becomes easier to talk to than another person.
We may lose some of the patience essential to human relationships. After all, unlike AI, our spouses, our children, our friends, our colleagues do not arrive. I'm sure the noble Lord Knight agrees me with me with an update settings or refresh button. Some may seek it. I know my wife and my absence as a foreign Minister often probably sought it unsuccessfully. I would argue yet, but perhaps that is precisely the point. Human relationships, as we've heard, derive their value from their imperfections.
The awkward conversations, the misunderstandings, the disagreements, the look. These are not flaws in humanity. They are part of what makes us exactly that human. We must ensure that innovation is guided by ethics, that regulation keeps pace with capability, and that human dignity remains at the centre of technological process. And therefore, I ask the noble Baroness, the Minister, what is the government's plans on ensuring that these principles are upheld? What conversations are we having with partners? Because in conclusion, my Lords, we must teach future generations that artificial intelligence may be able to answer some questions.
But its human intelligence, wisdom and compassion that gives meaning to our lives. At least that's the argument my wife and I present to our three human wonders at home. Their response? Not convinced. But the future, my Lords, should be a partnership in which technology AI enhances what is the best in humanity. As the Most Reverend reminded us. If we get that balance right, artificial intelligence will not diminish human relationships. It will give us perhaps even more reason to value them.
11:05
Baroness Fall (Conservative)
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Baroness Fall (Conservative)
My Lords, I join the chorus in thanking the Most Reverend Prime Minister for an excellent and Minister for an excellent and timely debate. And a and a and a brilliant speech. It's always a pleasure as well to follow my noble pleasure as well to follow my noble friend Lord Ahmad. My Lords were already in the midst of a technical revolution. AI is only the latest iteration to radically change the way we live, work, think and even love. We have learnt the hard way from our battles with social media that unless we seize the moment and try to mould technology to our value system, we will be left navigating the Wild West and AI is much larger and more consequential.
Debate seems to swing between two extremes. The optimists who believe AI will solve all our problems, and the pessimists who believe that robots have already taken charge. As usually, my Lords, the truth lies somewhere in between. And this is no futuristic debate. AI is already here. Which is why, again, this is such a commendably timely intervention. You can already feel AI in the workplace. We hear business leaders speaking about the opportunities for improving productivity, though they don't really know exactly how or indeed whether AI will give way to as yet new and unknown jobs.
But the transition, my Lords, is likely to be a difficult one. But however uncomfortable, attempting to put the genie back in the bottle is not a strategy, and we in Britain cannot afford to stand back and miss the AI boat for our own future prosperity and security as we grapple unsuccessfully with low growth and low productivity. There are so many areas which AI could rocket booster. We are a country with world class universities, a strong financial sector, leading scientific research and a thriving creative industry.
All areas that AI can drive enormous growth. If we get the policy and investment right. But, my Lords, and here's the crux of the debate over the last weekend between former Prime Minister Blair and Burnham Streeting. Seems to me a classic misunderstanding. There should be no trade off between growth and inequality. Growth is vital to the health and welfare of our nation, as is to ensuring that those benefits are felt by all communities. These aims must go hand in hand, but it would be extremely dangerous to turn our backs to AI because of concerns around driving further inequality.
Just as it would be foolish to ignore the possibility that it will. For we should not be blind to the danger that the latest tech revolution continues to trend. We've already seen in globalisation, in delivering for some, but not for others. And when people begin to feel the economy is no longer working for them, and that they have no stake in its success, the politics of that frustration follows quickly behind by Lord. No group are more exposed to AI than that of the young, especially those about to leave school wondering what best to study next and whether they'll have a job for them when they leave.
Higher education. Alan Milburn spoke devastatingly of the silence of the unheard voice of young people applying for jobs. His recent report has shaken the nation. 1 million in growing young people. Needs is not just a national tragedy, but an economic one in slow motion. We must ensure that we don't. The government does not make policies that make this worse. My Lords, it is a moral and economic imperative that these issues are tackled, especially at this time of AI. My Lords, the dignity of work is a very human condition.
We heard Pope Leo and our own Archbishop speak so eloquently about what it is to be human, and I was struck, too, by the call to arms for setting boundaries for AI is a matter for all humanity. No one is without responsibility to shape the future of AI, including and especially those who dedicate themselves to the AI race. For in the pride and the ambition to win, we must never lose sight of what it is you are trying to achieve. Or, as the founder of anthropic said this week, morality isn't a side business, my Lords.
We must focus on what we want from technology before it imposes what it wants on us. There are no easy answers. We are grappling with a revolution in real time. We are trying to make it bow to our values and whilst the opportunities are clear, it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to push back against the excesses of AI, to grapple with the moral issues it raises for AI will shape the future and we must shape
**** Possible New Speaker ****
it in turn. My Lords, as an AI researcher for nearly four decades and for nearly four decades and honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford since 2012, I congratulate the Most Reverend Primate on securing this hugely Primate on securing this hugely important debate. I should also declare an interest as the founder declare an interest as the founder Director of Leo Health, an AI for healthcare company. Leo spelt as LIO, not LEO. I should stress in the context of this debate in
Debate seems to swing between two extremes. The optimists who believe AI will solve all our problems, and the pessimists who believe that robots have already taken charge. As usually, my Lords, the truth lies somewhere in between. And this is no futuristic debate. AI is already here. Which is why, again, this is such a commendably timely intervention. You can already feel AI in the workplace. We hear business leaders speaking about the opportunities for improving productivity, though they don't really know exactly how or indeed whether AI will give way to as yet new and unknown jobs.
But the transition, my Lords, is likely to be a difficult one. But however uncomfortable, attempting to put the genie back in the bottle is not a strategy, and we in Britain cannot afford to stand back and miss the AI boat for our own future prosperity and security as we grapple unsuccessfully with low growth and low productivity. There are so many areas which AI could rocket booster. We are a country with world class universities, a strong financial sector, leading scientific research and a thriving creative industry.
All areas that AI can drive enormous growth. If we get the policy and investment right. But, my Lords, and here's the crux of the debate over the last weekend between former Prime Minister Blair and Burnham Streeting. Seems to me a classic misunderstanding. There should be no trade off between growth and inequality. Growth is vital to the health and welfare of our nation, as is to ensuring that those benefits are felt by all communities. These aims must go hand in hand, but it would be extremely dangerous to turn our backs to AI because of concerns around driving further inequality.
Just as it would be foolish to ignore the possibility that it will. For we should not be blind to the danger that the latest tech revolution continues to trend. We've already seen in globalisation, in delivering for some, but not for others. And when people begin to feel the economy is no longer working for them, and that they have no stake in its success, the politics of that frustration follows quickly behind by Lord. No group are more exposed to AI than that of the young, especially those about to leave school wondering what best to study next and whether they'll have a job for them when they leave.
Higher education. Alan Milburn spoke devastatingly of the silence of the unheard voice of young people applying for jobs. His recent report has shaken the nation. 1 million in growing young people. Needs is not just a national tragedy, but an economic one in slow motion. We must ensure that we don't. The government does not make policies that make this worse. My Lords, it is a moral and economic imperative that these issues are tackled, especially at this time of AI. My Lords, the dignity of work is a very human condition.
We heard Pope Leo and our own Archbishop speak so eloquently about what it is to be human, and I was struck, too, by the call to arms for setting boundaries for AI is a matter for all humanity. No one is without responsibility to shape the future of AI, including and especially those who dedicate themselves to the AI race. For in the pride and the ambition to win, we must never lose sight of what it is you are trying to achieve. Or, as the founder of anthropic said this week, morality isn't a side business, my Lords.
We must focus on what we want from technology before it imposes what it wants on us. There are no easy answers. We are grappling with a revolution in real time. We are trying to make it bow to our values and whilst the opportunities are clear, it is the responsibility of each and every one of us to push back against the excesses of AI, to grapple with the moral issues it raises for AI will shape the future and we must shape
**** Possible New Speaker ****
it in turn. My Lords, as an AI researcher for nearly four decades and for nearly four decades and honorary Canon of Christ Church Cathedral in Oxford since 2012, I congratulate the Most Reverend Primate on securing this hugely Primate on securing this hugely important debate. I should also declare an interest as the founder declare an interest as the founder Director of Leo Health, an AI for healthcare company. Leo spelt as LIO, not LEO. I should stress in the context of this debate in
11:10
Lord Tarassenko (Crossbench)
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Lord Tarassenko (Crossbench)
November 2022, OpenAI fired the starting gun of the AI arms race by releasing ChatGPT, a large language model, with a chatbot. When it model, with a chatbot. When it released ChatGPT with very basic guardrails, only OpenAI knew that guardrails, only OpenAI knew that it had major issues. This early release set the pattern in the AI arms race. Models released as fast as possible without comprehensive evaluation of their capabilities and alignment with human values. This can have disastrous consequences.
For example, the use of AI chatbots by teenagers. Teenagers may start using AI chatbots to help with their homework, but soon spend more time with them until they develop an unhealthy dependence on them. This dependence is fed by the sycophantic traits of LLM, and in extreme cases, this has led to tragic outcomes for young people. But this is not stopped. One third yes, one third of UK teenagers using a chatbot for an emotional relationship, and 23% of them actually believe that AI can feel emotions and is conscious.
But it is not just teenagers who are deceived. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist, wrote an essay last month. Claude the anthropic LM showed a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to Expostulate. You may not know you are conscious, but you jolly well are. So a dividing line is emerging between committed atheists such as Geoff Hinton and Richard Dawkins, and those of us from Jewish, Christian and some Islamic traditions who believe that there are fundamental aspects of human nature which cannot be reproduced in silicon.
Despite sophisticated reasoning abilities, AI can only produce simulations of human like behaviour acquired through pattern recognition at astronomical scale, not actual experience or understanding. An AI chatbot cannot experience pain or joy. Even if some LLMs trained on data sets, which include descriptions of human suffering and sci fi stories of sentient machines, can deceive people into believing otherwise. But as Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, wrote earlier this year, the simulation is getting better every day.
When a user interacts with AI, the system should consistently work to dispel the illusion that it is any kind of sentient being. My Lords, we have to educate young people about this illusion so that they understand that their interacting with the machine with human like capabilities, not another human being. And here the DfE has a responsibility to do so when it introduces AI tutors into the classroom at the end of 2027. We also have a moral duty to put pressure on AI labs or regulators if needed, so that AI chat bots are only released with effective guardrails, which prevent human beings from forming attachments with them.
Is there a glimmer of hope that we can begin to influence the direction of travel of the AI arms race? One of the co-founders of anthropic was present at the launch of the Pope's recent encyclical, and this is what he said. Every frontier AI lab experiences the pressure to stay commercially viable at the research frontier, and that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing. We need moral voices that incentives cannot bend and quotation. Earlier this year, in a stand off with the Pentagon, anthropic refused to remove safety guardrails on its Claude models for military applications.
Doing the right thing goes beyond military applications. However, the biggest failure of AI labs has been to design an AI that is smarter than a human as an end in itself, without proper regard for its potential harms on society, especially young people. As moral voices. We can point this out, but we need AI labs themselves to acknowledge this failure. Then, and only then, will typical mission statements from these labs about wanting AI to be safe and beneficial for society as a whole become more than just an aspiration.
For example, the use of AI chatbots by teenagers. Teenagers may start using AI chatbots to help with their homework, but soon spend more time with them until they develop an unhealthy dependence on them. This dependence is fed by the sycophantic traits of LLM, and in extreme cases, this has led to tragic outcomes for young people. But this is not stopped. One third yes, one third of UK teenagers using a chatbot for an emotional relationship, and 23% of them actually believe that AI can feel emotions and is conscious.
But it is not just teenagers who are deceived. Richard Dawkins, an evolutionary biologist and prominent atheist, wrote an essay last month. Claude the anthropic LM showed a level of understanding so subtle, so sensitive, so intelligent that I was moved to Expostulate. You may not know you are conscious, but you jolly well are. So a dividing line is emerging between committed atheists such as Geoff Hinton and Richard Dawkins, and those of us from Jewish, Christian and some Islamic traditions who believe that there are fundamental aspects of human nature which cannot be reproduced in silicon.
Despite sophisticated reasoning abilities, AI can only produce simulations of human like behaviour acquired through pattern recognition at astronomical scale, not actual experience or understanding. An AI chatbot cannot experience pain or joy. Even if some LLMs trained on data sets, which include descriptions of human suffering and sci fi stories of sentient machines, can deceive people into believing otherwise. But as Mustafa Suleiman, the CEO of Microsoft AI, wrote earlier this year, the simulation is getting better every day.
When a user interacts with AI, the system should consistently work to dispel the illusion that it is any kind of sentient being. My Lords, we have to educate young people about this illusion so that they understand that their interacting with the machine with human like capabilities, not another human being. And here the DfE has a responsibility to do so when it introduces AI tutors into the classroom at the end of 2027. We also have a moral duty to put pressure on AI labs or regulators if needed, so that AI chat bots are only released with effective guardrails, which prevent human beings from forming attachments with them.
Is there a glimmer of hope that we can begin to influence the direction of travel of the AI arms race? One of the co-founders of anthropic was present at the launch of the Pope's recent encyclical, and this is what he said. Every frontier AI lab experiences the pressure to stay commercially viable at the research frontier, and that can sometimes conflict with doing the right thing. We need moral voices that incentives cannot bend and quotation. Earlier this year, in a stand off with the Pentagon, anthropic refused to remove safety guardrails on its Claude models for military applications.
Doing the right thing goes beyond military applications. However, the biggest failure of AI labs has been to design an AI that is smarter than a human as an end in itself, without proper regard for its potential harms on society, especially young people. As moral voices. We can point this out, but we need AI labs themselves to acknowledge this failure. Then, and only then, will typical mission statements from these labs about wanting AI to be safe and beneficial for society as a whole become more than just an aspiration.
11:15
The Lord Bishop of Oxford (Bishops)
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The Lord Bishop of Oxford (Bishops)
It's a real pleasure to take part in this debate, and particularly to follow Lord Tarasenko with his wisdom and great Tarasenko with his wisdom and great knowledge of the field. My Lord's humanity stands at a real crossroads in this present moment. As we've heard, artificial intelligence brings many potential benefits. As the Archbishop of Canterbury has said, but also great jeopardy for the world. The prophet Jeremiah invites the people of his generation facing crisis, to stand at the crossroads and look and to ask for the ancient paths where the good way lies, and walk in it and find rest for your souls.
The primary risk of AI in the present moment is that the technology is being developed primarily for profit, for financial gain, for shareholder benefit. As Baroness Kidron has said, rather than from the benefit of humanity and our common home. Those commercial gains are mind boggling for the few. But as profits rise, the very concept of what it means to be human is being reduced. Human beings shrink in dignity and glory to become simply consumers of goods or services.
Here to give our attention, our money, our brand loyalty, our image, or else women and men are made in the image of God. For life in all its fullness are reduced to units of production, serving the algorithm and filling in the ever diminishing gaps left by robots and AI, warehousing, call centres, transport entry level jobs in the professions, coding are all seeing vast reductions in the workforce in the aim of efficiency. We need a different kind of prophet now.
What kind of future are we creating? Is it an empty utopia for some, based on entertainment which will not satisfy and what feels like slavery for others? And nowhere is this dilemma seen more clearly than in the area of work. Elon Musk famously predicted in 2023, in dialogue with our own then Prime Minister, that AI will put an end to jobs. As if that is a good thing. But work is not merely an instrument, as Pope Leo has argued, work expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives.
It is a requirement of the human condition. A normal path towards maturity, development and personal fulfilment. Last year, in the Diocese of Oxford, we invited 100 young people, mainly sixth formers, into our clergy conference to listen to their concerns about the world in small groups, AI and tech were at the very top of their list for a variety of reasons, but the most common was what I would do to the jobs and careers of these outstanding young people.
Those fears have been underscored by Anna Milburn's report. As noble Lords have said, on the rising number of young people not in education or employment, and by the cries of those submitting hundreds of applications and being turned down by AI in now dehumanised appointment processes. My Lords, our young people are more than data points, more than slaves to the algorithm, more than consumers. This kind of societal change is not inevitable. Technological change is not always progress. AI development needs the break as well as the accelerator.
As one of the founders of anthropic said last night, the UK can be and needs to be structured in such a way that there are meaningful pathways into good creative employment and lifelong work as the foundation for human dignity, of wellbeing, of stable family life. We therefore need a much bigger, wider conversation on the societal impact of AI drawing in the whole of our society. Governments need a richer, deeper understanding of what it means to be human. Beyond creating a nation of consumers to a nation of citizens, and drawing on the ancient paths of wisdom.
That conversation will then be able to shape our economy for the benefit of families and society, not simply the profits of technology companies. We need more investment, not less, in entry level jobs. A rehumanising of the application and support process. More dialogues on the risks and dangers of working with algorithms and some bigger thinking. A century ago, our nation responded to another new technology with the founding of the BBC, a radical step for the common good. We'll need similar new institutions for the public benefit.
My Lord, I'm sincerely hoping for a response from the Minister to this debate, which will demonstrate humility and acknowledge the crossroads, the jeopardy, and which will seek to broaden and deepen the conversations on the choices we must make.
The primary risk of AI in the present moment is that the technology is being developed primarily for profit, for financial gain, for shareholder benefit. As Baroness Kidron has said, rather than from the benefit of humanity and our common home. Those commercial gains are mind boggling for the few. But as profits rise, the very concept of what it means to be human is being reduced. Human beings shrink in dignity and glory to become simply consumers of goods or services.
Here to give our attention, our money, our brand loyalty, our image, or else women and men are made in the image of God. For life in all its fullness are reduced to units of production, serving the algorithm and filling in the ever diminishing gaps left by robots and AI, warehousing, call centres, transport entry level jobs in the professions, coding are all seeing vast reductions in the workforce in the aim of efficiency. We need a different kind of prophet now.
What kind of future are we creating? Is it an empty utopia for some, based on entertainment which will not satisfy and what feels like slavery for others? And nowhere is this dilemma seen more clearly than in the area of work. Elon Musk famously predicted in 2023, in dialogue with our own then Prime Minister, that AI will put an end to jobs. As if that is a good thing. But work is not merely an instrument, as Pope Leo has argued, work expresses and enhances the dignity of our lives.
It is a requirement of the human condition. A normal path towards maturity, development and personal fulfilment. Last year, in the Diocese of Oxford, we invited 100 young people, mainly sixth formers, into our clergy conference to listen to their concerns about the world in small groups, AI and tech were at the very top of their list for a variety of reasons, but the most common was what I would do to the jobs and careers of these outstanding young people.
Those fears have been underscored by Anna Milburn's report. As noble Lords have said, on the rising number of young people not in education or employment, and by the cries of those submitting hundreds of applications and being turned down by AI in now dehumanised appointment processes. My Lords, our young people are more than data points, more than slaves to the algorithm, more than consumers. This kind of societal change is not inevitable. Technological change is not always progress. AI development needs the break as well as the accelerator.
As one of the founders of anthropic said last night, the UK can be and needs to be structured in such a way that there are meaningful pathways into good creative employment and lifelong work as the foundation for human dignity, of wellbeing, of stable family life. We therefore need a much bigger, wider conversation on the societal impact of AI drawing in the whole of our society. Governments need a richer, deeper understanding of what it means to be human. Beyond creating a nation of consumers to a nation of citizens, and drawing on the ancient paths of wisdom.
That conversation will then be able to shape our economy for the benefit of families and society, not simply the profits of technology companies. We need more investment, not less, in entry level jobs. A rehumanising of the application and support process. More dialogues on the risks and dangers of working with algorithms and some bigger thinking. A century ago, our nation responded to another new technology with the founding of the BBC, a radical step for the common good. We'll need similar new institutions for the public benefit.
My Lord, I'm sincerely hoping for a response from the Minister to this debate, which will demonstrate humility and acknowledge the crossroads, the jeopardy, and which will seek to broaden and deepen the conversations on the choices we must make.
11:20
Lord Johnson of Lainston (Conservative)
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Lord Johnson of Lainston (Conservative)
I could begin by declaring. >> In AI companies, and I'm hoping to go on the board of an AI company, because I think AI is the most amazing thing ever to happen to us. amazing thing ever to happen to us. I can't understand the long faces in this chamber, the worry, the hand-wringing about a technology that will change the world for the better, but it will be highly disruptive. I don't disagree with that. And I think as we enter an age of abundance, what I am pleased to say to the noble Lords opposite is it will become the end of capitalism.
If resources can become effectively free. Other things then become ration. It could be leisure. If a billion people can go to Venice and obviously you know how you access Venice will become the capitalist principle of a market price. But all the things that we need to survive and actually to thrive and enjoy ourselves will become free. And we're going to see massive disruption as a result. I don't disagree with the right reverend prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, in the sense of the future of work.
Whilst the artisanal classes will flourish, in my view, it's the cost of what they want comes down and the value of what they provide goes up the white collar. Mostly us noble Lords in this house will be seriously disintermediated, but actually we're all saying that's a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's a fabulous thing. Who wants to be an accountant or a lawyer or a consultant, or a civil servant, or even a doctor? Domain expertise will become irrelevant as technology takes over.
We won't have to do these things. And I don't belittle any noble Lord for having had a wonderful career, no doubt in one of those occupations. And I don't want to sound flippant when I say that the end of those occupations are not going to cause severe disruption on our body politic and society. But in the same way, we don't say, now let's get rid of our dishwasher or tumble dryer. The fact is, the highest number of people in employment in 1900 were in domestic service carrying water, heating it up, washing dishes and cleaning.
No one wants to go back to that will be freed. We should look at this as a principle of freedom. What worries me, though, is we're not really thinking properly in government, in political parties, about how this will have an effect on society. And that's why this debate, led by the Right Reverend primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is so important. And if I think of the extraordinary revolutionary change between my life and my children's, we really now understand the brick wall we're heading into.
If we don't do a handbrake turn now, we're going to have serious repercussions. If I think of my life I was born, I went to school, I left university at 21. I got a job. I did the same job for 30 years. I bought a car, I got married, I bought a house, I had children. Soon I will retire and then I will die. It's not a particularly exciting prospect. Most noble Lords, I'm afraid, will share the same fate. But my 18 year old daughter, she isn't going to finish education.
In fact, she's been educated. She's doing her A-levels at the moment. She's been educated entirely pointlessly, in my view. I wish her the best for her exams, but she's learning Edwardian post-industrial service industry skills that are totally inappropriate for the future. She's not going to do the same job for 30 years. She'll do something completely different that we haven't even imagined. In the next two years, tomorrow, the disintermediation we're hearing all already. She she's not going to buy a house in the same way.
Her mobility will be different. She probably won't retire. And anyone born after 2005 might not die. So we are looking today at a government system that is entirely outdated, not just by a tweak, not just issues of energy or employment policy, or the disastrous consequences of poor Tory government and worse Labour government. We're looking at an entire societal change that we are simply not prepared for or thinking about, and I think this is a crisis and emergency, not in a situation of how do we control AI, but how do we teach our citizens? How do we educate ourselves to cope with an age of purposelessness, which is far more fundamental? And that's why this debate from the Archbishop of Canterbury is so fascinating.
In fact, it's a wonderful thing because we will allow we will be allowed to be more human. We go back to the ancient traditions of rhetoric where we have grammar, logic and articulation. We have to learn information, but then we have to have the dialectic. We have to learn truth, which is what puzzles us, what is true in the information age. And then, of course, how we articulate it. To have voice, we can be more human. And I'm excited for the Church of England.
You can dust off all those pews. Those empty churches would be filled because we'll have so much time to actually have societal relationships, to actually think about how we work in our communities, to actually be who we want to be. We won't have to do those functions that took over our lives for the whole of the history of humanity. So I ask the government to be brave and bold about a vision. How will we deal with societies where you don't have the common purpose of the services sector, where machines take the drudgery away from us? How do we actually teach ourselves to deal with these new luxuries? Without that debate, I think we'll have a serious crisis.
But if we master it, this country can take a lead in the AI revolution.
If resources can become effectively free. Other things then become ration. It could be leisure. If a billion people can go to Venice and obviously you know how you access Venice will become the capitalist principle of a market price. But all the things that we need to survive and actually to thrive and enjoy ourselves will become free. And we're going to see massive disruption as a result. I don't disagree with the right reverend prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, in the sense of the future of work.
Whilst the artisanal classes will flourish, in my view, it's the cost of what they want comes down and the value of what they provide goes up the white collar. Mostly us noble Lords in this house will be seriously disintermediated, but actually we're all saying that's a bad thing. It's not a bad thing. It's a fabulous thing. Who wants to be an accountant or a lawyer or a consultant, or a civil servant, or even a doctor? Domain expertise will become irrelevant as technology takes over.
We won't have to do these things. And I don't belittle any noble Lord for having had a wonderful career, no doubt in one of those occupations. And I don't want to sound flippant when I say that the end of those occupations are not going to cause severe disruption on our body politic and society. But in the same way, we don't say, now let's get rid of our dishwasher or tumble dryer. The fact is, the highest number of people in employment in 1900 were in domestic service carrying water, heating it up, washing dishes and cleaning.
No one wants to go back to that will be freed. We should look at this as a principle of freedom. What worries me, though, is we're not really thinking properly in government, in political parties, about how this will have an effect on society. And that's why this debate, led by the Right Reverend primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, is so important. And if I think of the extraordinary revolutionary change between my life and my children's, we really now understand the brick wall we're heading into.
If we don't do a handbrake turn now, we're going to have serious repercussions. If I think of my life I was born, I went to school, I left university at 21. I got a job. I did the same job for 30 years. I bought a car, I got married, I bought a house, I had children. Soon I will retire and then I will die. It's not a particularly exciting prospect. Most noble Lords, I'm afraid, will share the same fate. But my 18 year old daughter, she isn't going to finish education.
In fact, she's been educated. She's doing her A-levels at the moment. She's been educated entirely pointlessly, in my view. I wish her the best for her exams, but she's learning Edwardian post-industrial service industry skills that are totally inappropriate for the future. She's not going to do the same job for 30 years. She'll do something completely different that we haven't even imagined. In the next two years, tomorrow, the disintermediation we're hearing all already. She she's not going to buy a house in the same way.
Her mobility will be different. She probably won't retire. And anyone born after 2005 might not die. So we are looking today at a government system that is entirely outdated, not just by a tweak, not just issues of energy or employment policy, or the disastrous consequences of poor Tory government and worse Labour government. We're looking at an entire societal change that we are simply not prepared for or thinking about, and I think this is a crisis and emergency, not in a situation of how do we control AI, but how do we teach our citizens? How do we educate ourselves to cope with an age of purposelessness, which is far more fundamental? And that's why this debate from the Archbishop of Canterbury is so fascinating.
In fact, it's a wonderful thing because we will allow we will be allowed to be more human. We go back to the ancient traditions of rhetoric where we have grammar, logic and articulation. We have to learn information, but then we have to have the dialectic. We have to learn truth, which is what puzzles us, what is true in the information age. And then, of course, how we articulate it. To have voice, we can be more human. And I'm excited for the Church of England.
You can dust off all those pews. Those empty churches would be filled because we'll have so much time to actually have societal relationships, to actually think about how we work in our communities, to actually be who we want to be. We won't have to do those functions that took over our lives for the whole of the history of humanity. So I ask the government to be brave and bold about a vision. How will we deal with societies where you don't have the common purpose of the services sector, where machines take the drudgery away from us? How do we actually teach ourselves to deal with these new luxuries? Without that debate, I think we'll have a serious crisis.
But if we master it, this country can take a lead in the AI revolution.
11:25
Baroness Gill (Labour)
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Baroness Gill (Labour)
Thank you. >> Thank you. >> My Lords. My sincere gratitude to the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for Archbishop of Canterbury, for bringing this vital topic for debate today. The real impact of AI on our culture is a theoretical threat to the future. It is a quiet, comfortable surrender of the human mind happening right now in our own living rooms. I feel a sense of responsibility on this subject. Years ago, I sat in the European Parliament as a rapporteur for E-content, fighting to protect our unique cultural identity.
Later, I worked for an IT company specialising in data analytics. Looking back, we were building the foundational architecture of what we now call AI. In those days, I believe data analytics was a real force for good, and it was. We used data to target and reduce maternal mortality, the spread of Aids, optimising global shipping routes to cut fuel consumption. So I'm no Luddite. In another parliamentary report I authored on elder care, I fiercely advocated for technology like robotic surgery smart home aides to help our elders remain independent, dignified and safe in their home.
But we must recognise the fundamental difference between that era of targeted problem solving and the sweeping algorithmic landscape of today. We're grappling blindly towards a world where we trade our core values for a total convenience with Alexa, Google and Apple look at our families. We are witnessing the death of domestic conversation and connections. Go into any home today, and you see families who hardly speak to one another because every individual is entirely engrossed in their own isolated, personalised screen.
Many have outsourced the mentorship and emotional development of our children more profoundly. Our deepest spiritual values and religious traditions are under existential threat. Faith and culture rely on shared generational human connection, but an algorithm has no soul. By allowing automated systems, automated systems to create our morality, we erode the very foundation of our shared values and ethical life. And why are we letting this happen? No one, let alone a politician, wants to come across as a Luddite.
So we walk on eggshells, terrified of appearing anti-progress. The consequence is a direct threat to our democracy. Security we've taken for granted for decades here that communal violence and disorder did not erupt instantaneously. We had a robust social fabric built on trust. Look how fragile our society has become. We saw it in Southport and in the last days we see saw it in Southampton. A single piece of AI amplified fake news weaponized by an algorithm optimised for outrage, shattered our societal consensus.
In a matter of hours, the damage travels further into politics, directly targeting our children. We are standing by as Big Tech's algorithms of outrage systematically funnel young, isolated boys down the toxic rabbit holes, funnelling them into arms of mindless aggressors. Combine that with the rise of harmful sites that actively encourage violence or aid and abet suicides among vulnerable young people. This is where the government becomes critical. The role of the government becomes critical.
UK has favoured an agile sector by sector approach, relying on regulators like Ofcom. Agility is an advantage only if our regulators have teeth, so I would ask the Minister to reflect on this can we truly expect voluntary codes of conduct to protect the society we have known? Will the government move beyond mere guidelines and introduce a statutory opt in right, legally compelling tech companies to let users turn off these toxic recommender algorithms entirely? We must draw a hard line where automation stops aiding human capability and starts replacing human identity, as in superintelligent AI.
Let us ensure that digital architecture we guide continues to serve human wisdom than automatic humanity out of existence. We must fiercely reject an algorithm that replaces families conversation, a community's trust, or citizens independent thought. Years ago, I asked how to distribute digital information. Today, this House must ask how to protect the human soul within it.
Later, I worked for an IT company specialising in data analytics. Looking back, we were building the foundational architecture of what we now call AI. In those days, I believe data analytics was a real force for good, and it was. We used data to target and reduce maternal mortality, the spread of Aids, optimising global shipping routes to cut fuel consumption. So I'm no Luddite. In another parliamentary report I authored on elder care, I fiercely advocated for technology like robotic surgery smart home aides to help our elders remain independent, dignified and safe in their home.
But we must recognise the fundamental difference between that era of targeted problem solving and the sweeping algorithmic landscape of today. We're grappling blindly towards a world where we trade our core values for a total convenience with Alexa, Google and Apple look at our families. We are witnessing the death of domestic conversation and connections. Go into any home today, and you see families who hardly speak to one another because every individual is entirely engrossed in their own isolated, personalised screen.
Many have outsourced the mentorship and emotional development of our children more profoundly. Our deepest spiritual values and religious traditions are under existential threat. Faith and culture rely on shared generational human connection, but an algorithm has no soul. By allowing automated systems, automated systems to create our morality, we erode the very foundation of our shared values and ethical life. And why are we letting this happen? No one, let alone a politician, wants to come across as a Luddite.
So we walk on eggshells, terrified of appearing anti-progress. The consequence is a direct threat to our democracy. Security we've taken for granted for decades here that communal violence and disorder did not erupt instantaneously. We had a robust social fabric built on trust. Look how fragile our society has become. We saw it in Southport and in the last days we see saw it in Southampton. A single piece of AI amplified fake news weaponized by an algorithm optimised for outrage, shattered our societal consensus.
In a matter of hours, the damage travels further into politics, directly targeting our children. We are standing by as Big Tech's algorithms of outrage systematically funnel young, isolated boys down the toxic rabbit holes, funnelling them into arms of mindless aggressors. Combine that with the rise of harmful sites that actively encourage violence or aid and abet suicides among vulnerable young people. This is where the government becomes critical. The role of the government becomes critical.
UK has favoured an agile sector by sector approach, relying on regulators like Ofcom. Agility is an advantage only if our regulators have teeth, so I would ask the Minister to reflect on this can we truly expect voluntary codes of conduct to protect the society we have known? Will the government move beyond mere guidelines and introduce a statutory opt in right, legally compelling tech companies to let users turn off these toxic recommender algorithms entirely? We must draw a hard line where automation stops aiding human capability and starts replacing human identity, as in superintelligent AI.
Let us ensure that digital architecture we guide continues to serve human wisdom than automatic humanity out of existence. We must fiercely reject an algorithm that replaces families conversation, a community's trust, or citizens independent thought. Years ago, I asked how to distribute digital information. Today, this House must ask how to protect the human soul within it.
11:31
Lord Shinkwin (Conservative)
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Lord Shinkwin (Conservative)
My Lords. >> Lord Shinkwin is taking part remotely. I invite Lord Shinkwin to speak.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
speak. My Lords, I to congratulate the right reverend Primate for securing right reverend Primate for securing this important debate and for her thought provoking speech. She and others have referred to the Pope's encyclical on AI, which states, and I quote, technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise it. Timeouts regulate and use it. Now, I readily acknowledge, as others have done, including Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the potential benefits of AI to disabled people like me.
This autumn will see the launch of an exciting new initiative called Typekit, an AI tool to enable disabled people and those professionals who support them to find the right technology and support at the right time. I commend its founder and CEO, Hector Minto, formerly of Microsoft, for his passion to put his expertise at the service of others for the common good. But my Lords, I doubt that that is what the Pope is alluding to when he speaks of the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use technology.
No one disputes that AI has placed immense power in the hands of unaccountable corporations and of individuals such as Elon Musk and the right reverend Primate reminded us, power corrupts so surely at a time when the co-founder and CEO of anthropic, the world's most valuable Start-Up in AI, calls for a global freeze in AI development and warns that humans risk losing control of the technology, it is worth reflecting on what those characteristics to which the Pope alludes are, and how they to be exploited by a superintelligence recursively self-improve AI ecosystem that speaks to itself, potentially bypassing us as its creators to our disastrous detriment.
Now, you may laugh at traitors as a bit of light hearted entertainment, but when we glorify the ability to see each other, should we really be surprised that an AI ecosystem that we have constructed deceives us? As apparently it's already showing signs of being able to do? In that situation, the concept of a kill switch is meaningless. Whatever human characteristics my Lords might be, AI into system exploits. But what about greed? Consider the genocide of Muslims, the Chinese genocide of Muslims being perpetrated by the odious Communist Party regime so odious that world leaders continue to queue up to ask for more business.
I call it the four G's. Greed gives the green light to genocide. We can be confident that these pen is already harnessing AI to commit genocide in Xinjiang province. So I conclude with this question for the Minister whether the government will get behind the CEO of anthropic and back his call for halting development so that we can retrofit efforts at the heart of AI before it is too late, because as speaker before me said, the role of government here is critical.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
It's always a pleasure to follow Lord Shinkwin with his thoughtful Lord Shinkwin with his thoughtful and perceptive comments on our and perceptive comments on our society. I have now been in the House of Lords for just over 30 House of Lords for just over 30 years. When I accepted Paddy Ashdown's invitation to take a nomination to this House in 1996, I genuinely thought that I would be coming here for 2 or 3 years before a new Labour government would sweep away this house of patronage, patronage and then, of course, inheritance as well.
For newcomers. I wouldn't worry too much that this present Labour government is going to rush any more than did the 1997 Labour government. But it does give me, like most people have been a long time, the great, actual great fondness for this House and this morning has been a very good example of the house at its very best, as we wrap ourselves in the warm satisfaction of almost total agreement, AI is an ominous problem.
And needs action. I've got. I've had the pleasure of serving on the Select Committee on Communications and Digital, skilfully chaired by the Baroness Noble, Baroness Baroness Keeley, and I've seen the
**** Possible New Speaker ****
speak. My Lords, I to congratulate the right reverend Primate for securing right reverend Primate for securing this important debate and for her thought provoking speech. She and others have referred to the Pope's encyclical on AI, which states, and I quote, technology is never neutral because it takes on the characteristics of those who devise it. Timeouts regulate and use it. Now, I readily acknowledge, as others have done, including Lord Ahmad of Wimbledon, the potential benefits of AI to disabled people like me.
This autumn will see the launch of an exciting new initiative called Typekit, an AI tool to enable disabled people and those professionals who support them to find the right technology and support at the right time. I commend its founder and CEO, Hector Minto, formerly of Microsoft, for his passion to put his expertise at the service of others for the common good. But my Lords, I doubt that that is what the Pope is alluding to when he speaks of the characteristics of those who devise, finance, regulate and use technology.
No one disputes that AI has placed immense power in the hands of unaccountable corporations and of individuals such as Elon Musk and the right reverend Primate reminded us, power corrupts so surely at a time when the co-founder and CEO of anthropic, the world's most valuable Start-Up in AI, calls for a global freeze in AI development and warns that humans risk losing control of the technology, it is worth reflecting on what those characteristics to which the Pope alludes are, and how they to be exploited by a superintelligence recursively self-improve AI ecosystem that speaks to itself, potentially bypassing us as its creators to our disastrous detriment.
Now, you may laugh at traitors as a bit of light hearted entertainment, but when we glorify the ability to see each other, should we really be surprised that an AI ecosystem that we have constructed deceives us? As apparently it's already showing signs of being able to do? In that situation, the concept of a kill switch is meaningless. Whatever human characteristics my Lords might be, AI into system exploits. But what about greed? Consider the genocide of Muslims, the Chinese genocide of Muslims being perpetrated by the odious Communist Party regime so odious that world leaders continue to queue up to ask for more business.
I call it the four G's. Greed gives the green light to genocide. We can be confident that these pen is already harnessing AI to commit genocide in Xinjiang province. So I conclude with this question for the Minister whether the government will get behind the CEO of anthropic and back his call for halting development so that we can retrofit efforts at the heart of AI before it is too late, because as speaker before me said, the role of government here is critical.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
It's always a pleasure to follow Lord Shinkwin with his thoughtful Lord Shinkwin with his thoughtful and perceptive comments on our and perceptive comments on our society. I have now been in the House of Lords for just over 30 House of Lords for just over 30 years. When I accepted Paddy Ashdown's invitation to take a nomination to this House in 1996, I genuinely thought that I would be coming here for 2 or 3 years before a new Labour government would sweep away this house of patronage, patronage and then, of course, inheritance as well.
For newcomers. I wouldn't worry too much that this present Labour government is going to rush any more than did the 1997 Labour government. But it does give me, like most people have been a long time, the great, actual great fondness for this House and this morning has been a very good example of the house at its very best, as we wrap ourselves in the warm satisfaction of almost total agreement, AI is an ominous problem.
And needs action. I've got. I've had the pleasure of serving on the Select Committee on Communications and Digital, skilfully chaired by the Baroness Noble, Baroness Baroness Keeley, and I've seen the
11:38
Lord McNally (Liberal Democrat)
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Lord McNally (Liberal Democrat)
expertise of that committee on view today from Lord Tarassenko and. today from Lord Tarassenko and. Others. The problem is that outside our cosy globe there is a battle our cosy globe there is a battle going on. And the Minister is well aware of it, because I saw her. Womanly. Well, I don't know what the feminine mantra is, but she was sticking to the. But the problem is that this AI revolution is now underway.
And I do fear that there is a kind of perilous, perilous paralysis at the heart of government at the moment I see the pressures from the tech departments wanting to grab the benefits that we've heard of, see of AI and get them quickly forward. And we've heard the concerns of many of the creative industries about the capacity of AI to dislodge. And as Lord Johnson. Explained, may wipe away whole sections of employment.
My only worry is. If I studied anything in university and I had a very useful and enjoyable time at University College London, I studied economic history as well as studied economic history as well as student politics and the. The. What remained to me about my study of economic history is that times of very rapid technological change, as Lord Johnson very frankly said, there will be mass casualties. And in the past, governments and societies have not always been able to.
Within any kind of democratic process, handle those rapid changes. And that's my fear that we now face. I was delighted when the Archbishop of Canterbury chose this for our first debate. I got to say that when almost on cue, the Pope produced his first encyclical, it made me think that links between Canterbury and Rome must be closer than we sometimes imagine. But I. What I do think is that at the moment we have not got in place in the machinery of government, the kind of rapid response that can deal with the problems that have been so well articulated today, and I hope that the Minister will give us some indication that the government is putting in place the way that our democracy can handle these very difficult problems, because if we do not, then those with short, easy answers, the populists of both left and right will be.
That will be those who will get the popular support to their solutions.
And I do fear that there is a kind of perilous, perilous paralysis at the heart of government at the moment I see the pressures from the tech departments wanting to grab the benefits that we've heard of, see of AI and get them quickly forward. And we've heard the concerns of many of the creative industries about the capacity of AI to dislodge. And as Lord Johnson. Explained, may wipe away whole sections of employment.
My only worry is. If I studied anything in university and I had a very useful and enjoyable time at University College London, I studied economic history as well as studied economic history as well as student politics and the. The. What remained to me about my study of economic history is that times of very rapid technological change, as Lord Johnson very frankly said, there will be mass casualties. And in the past, governments and societies have not always been able to.
Within any kind of democratic process, handle those rapid changes. And that's my fear that we now face. I was delighted when the Archbishop of Canterbury chose this for our first debate. I got to say that when almost on cue, the Pope produced his first encyclical, it made me think that links between Canterbury and Rome must be closer than we sometimes imagine. But I. What I do think is that at the moment we have not got in place in the machinery of government, the kind of rapid response that can deal with the problems that have been so well articulated today, and I hope that the Minister will give us some indication that the government is putting in place the way that our democracy can handle these very difficult problems, because if we do not, then those with short, easy answers, the populists of both left and right will be.
That will be those who will get the popular support to their solutions.
11:42
Baroness Prashar (Crossbench)
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Baroness Prashar (Crossbench)
My Lords, I to thank the the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for Archbishop of Canterbury, for securing this debate and for an extremely thoughtful introduction. My Lord, as we know that the central question before us is how best we can harness the advantages and potential of AI without damaging society and humanity. Technology has always changed human behaviour, but AI is different because it reaches into areas once thought uniquely human judgement, creativity, communication and even companionship.
Human relationships are not simply built on the exchange of information that build on trust, empathy, understanding, shared experience, and they depend on our capacity to listen, to question, and to challenge. Misuse of AI is destroying trust. When people can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is artificially generated. Democratic debate is being distorted, but misinformation is produced at scale and targeted at unprecedented position. Trusted information, my Lords, is a core part of security infrastructure, of democratic society, and it must be a strategic priority for government.
Social cohesion is fraying. When algorithms increasingly shape what we see, what we believe, and who we trust, and quite rightly, has been referred to. The Pope recently stated that technology must remain a tool in the service of humanity and not its master, and that wisdom is not as same as knowledge. And one is reminded of Tennyson, who said, knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. And for me, AI could also be called as ancient intelligence. My Lords, AI can process vast amount of data, but it cannot exercise judgement.
It cannot distinguish between what is technically possible and what is ethically right. And as legislators, we have a responsibility to ensure that development of AI is guided by principles that protect humanity, preserve accountability, transparency, democratic oversight, and is inclusive. It must not replace human qualities upon which society is built. So we need proper governance to ensure that these technologies have served common good and shared prosperity. Governance, my Lords, is not just about rules, norms and procedures.
It's about incentives, eliminating barriers, fostering impact investment, putting money in innovation to help navigate challenges that arise from technology and the best governance systems will be those which can monitor the entire cycle of technology, infrastructure, algorithms and the data. And it is a myth that governance stifles innovation. The government's plans about AI are rightly ambitious, but the previous proposals in 2023, which established the AI Safety Institute, now called the Security Institute, were geared towards mitigating future risks.
But these are now missing from the current plan. My Lords government should not be reduced to just managing harms after they arise. This will narrow the choices going forward. Given AI's potential, it is preferable to manage risks early rather than resort to drastic measures later. AI Security Institute has made useful contribution and was a good innovation, but its work is retrospective. Its scope was narrowed from safety to security, and it does not focus on societal harms such as in such as misinformation.
Voluntary compliance is no longer sufficient. So what we need is a statutory framework. And in yesterday's debate, Lord Holmes made a very good case for having a cross sector principle based approach going forward. My Lords, there is also a need for what I call AI literacy, equipping people for the new demands posed by AI. That is, skills and qualities needed to use AI intelligently identifying and developing skills and talent for future workforce and opportunities for lifelong learning. And I would here support Lord Waldegrave's call for higher preference being given to humanities education, which has been demoted in the previous years.
So be useful to know what the government is doing in this area, because I suspect it's lagging behind. So, my Lords, if we do not build the future for ourselves, AI will. And we can take action now to show that progress rooted in ethics and protection of humanity is not a constraint, but a competitive edge and a foundation for a strong democratic society.
Human relationships are not simply built on the exchange of information that build on trust, empathy, understanding, shared experience, and they depend on our capacity to listen, to question, and to challenge. Misuse of AI is destroying trust. When people can no longer distinguish between what is real and what is artificially generated. Democratic debate is being distorted, but misinformation is produced at scale and targeted at unprecedented position. Trusted information, my Lords, is a core part of security infrastructure, of democratic society, and it must be a strategic priority for government.
Social cohesion is fraying. When algorithms increasingly shape what we see, what we believe, and who we trust, and quite rightly, has been referred to. The Pope recently stated that technology must remain a tool in the service of humanity and not its master, and that wisdom is not as same as knowledge. And one is reminded of Tennyson, who said, knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. And for me, AI could also be called as ancient intelligence. My Lords, AI can process vast amount of data, but it cannot exercise judgement.
It cannot distinguish between what is technically possible and what is ethically right. And as legislators, we have a responsibility to ensure that development of AI is guided by principles that protect humanity, preserve accountability, transparency, democratic oversight, and is inclusive. It must not replace human qualities upon which society is built. So we need proper governance to ensure that these technologies have served common good and shared prosperity. Governance, my Lords, is not just about rules, norms and procedures.
It's about incentives, eliminating barriers, fostering impact investment, putting money in innovation to help navigate challenges that arise from technology and the best governance systems will be those which can monitor the entire cycle of technology, infrastructure, algorithms and the data. And it is a myth that governance stifles innovation. The government's plans about AI are rightly ambitious, but the previous proposals in 2023, which established the AI Safety Institute, now called the Security Institute, were geared towards mitigating future risks.
But these are now missing from the current plan. My Lords government should not be reduced to just managing harms after they arise. This will narrow the choices going forward. Given AI's potential, it is preferable to manage risks early rather than resort to drastic measures later. AI Security Institute has made useful contribution and was a good innovation, but its work is retrospective. Its scope was narrowed from safety to security, and it does not focus on societal harms such as in such as misinformation.
Voluntary compliance is no longer sufficient. So what we need is a statutory framework. And in yesterday's debate, Lord Holmes made a very good case for having a cross sector principle based approach going forward. My Lords, there is also a need for what I call AI literacy, equipping people for the new demands posed by AI. That is, skills and qualities needed to use AI intelligently identifying and developing skills and talent for future workforce and opportunities for lifelong learning. And I would here support Lord Waldegrave's call for higher preference being given to humanities education, which has been demoted in the previous years.
So be useful to know what the government is doing in this area, because I suspect it's lagging behind. So, my Lords, if we do not build the future for ourselves, AI will. And we can take action now to show that progress rooted in ethics and protection of humanity is not a constraint, but a competitive edge and a foundation for a strong democratic society.
11:48
Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated)
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Lord Taylor of Warwick (Non-affiliated)
I would like to thank the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for introducing this important debate through artificial intelligence. What was once intelligence. What was once considered science fiction has become science fiction. Innovation and technology have brought solutions to people's everyday problems. Britain can be proud of the fact that it started the Industrial Revolution, but we're now in the fast moving AI revolution and the debate hides a hook. I had the privilege to present the bill in 1997, which established Britain's first ever comprehensive DNA database.
But without DNA regulation, we would not have experienced that positive DNA revolution. As a result, we became the first nation in the world to embrace that groundbreaking technology. Nearly 30 years later, the DNA database has positively transformed the effectiveness of medicine, forensic and research science of 195 nations in the world, 175 now utilise DNA profiles. In the King's Speech, there was no mention, my Lords of an AI bill. In January of last year, the government announced its intention to consult on proposed legislation to regulate AI and to put the AI Security Institute on a statutory footing.
Nearly 18 months later. The government has not acted on these plans. So may I ask the noble Minister why not? Over half of adults and young people in the UK use artificial intelligence. This can produce human like content and dialogue. But we must not forget that each one of us has AI. It's called actual intelligence. There is a danger that increased use of AI for friendship in inverted commas could reduce incentives to maintain human relationships with negative long term social consequences.
AI companions are always available and do not have their own needs, so people may find interacting with an AI friend easier than sustaining a human relationship. For ten years, I had the privilege of being a vice president of the BBFC, the British Film Board. We regulated films and video games from all over the world, but in particular from Hollywood. Our remit was to protect, in particular children and other vulnerable sections of society. We saw how powerful films and video games can be in affecting emotions and the ways in which the world is perceived.
AI is having an increased effect on these creative industries, including films and video games. But they have to be my Lords guardrails. It is easier to build a strong child than to repair a broken man. I'm also encouraged by the potential AI applications in healthcare. We're all living longer, and the demands on the National Health Service are greater than ever. Now I have to accept that more and more money is being spent on the NHS, but it's clear that simply spending more money is not the answer.
It's like pouring water into a bath with the plug out. AI is creating new ways to treat illness and streamline management to make it more effective. But during that process, there must be oversight from human doctors, nurses and other medical staff. AI brings with it other challenges which are yet to be met. They include the impact on jobs and careers, the protection of copyright and the creative industries, and the potential impact on the environment. AI models require large amounts of electricity with increased carbon emissions.
Each use of an AI tool needs a significant amount of energy. A ChatGPT query uses about five times more energy than a simple web search. The irony is that the growth of AI technology could find its biggest obstacle in the lack of physical buildings. To develop it in planning, laws are available to people who oppose data centres in their locality. The energy consumption of data centres globally has increased greatly since 2022. It is expected by the end of this year, data centres will consume 1050 terawatt hours, equal to amount of electricity consumption of Japan and Russia.
Even the mining of raw materials needed to make processes used for AI often involve harmful effects on the environment. Some critics claim that AI machines may become more and more like humans. But my Lords, I believe that the danger may be that humans try to become more and more like machines, with a constant search for perfection and efficiency. It is the human soul that will always be unique. Beethoven created his wonderful Ninth Symphony to inspire the world at a time when he had become almost totally deaf and could not hear the music himself.
Human beings, not machines, have the qualities of courage, faith, love, intuition, curiosity, imagination and creativity. They also experience sadness, failure, ill health and doubt. Yes, a machine can be manufactured with no visible imperfections or cracks, but in humans it is sometimes the cracks that let the light in. Yes.
But without DNA regulation, we would not have experienced that positive DNA revolution. As a result, we became the first nation in the world to embrace that groundbreaking technology. Nearly 30 years later, the DNA database has positively transformed the effectiveness of medicine, forensic and research science of 195 nations in the world, 175 now utilise DNA profiles. In the King's Speech, there was no mention, my Lords of an AI bill. In January of last year, the government announced its intention to consult on proposed legislation to regulate AI and to put the AI Security Institute on a statutory footing.
Nearly 18 months later. The government has not acted on these plans. So may I ask the noble Minister why not? Over half of adults and young people in the UK use artificial intelligence. This can produce human like content and dialogue. But we must not forget that each one of us has AI. It's called actual intelligence. There is a danger that increased use of AI for friendship in inverted commas could reduce incentives to maintain human relationships with negative long term social consequences.
AI companions are always available and do not have their own needs, so people may find interacting with an AI friend easier than sustaining a human relationship. For ten years, I had the privilege of being a vice president of the BBFC, the British Film Board. We regulated films and video games from all over the world, but in particular from Hollywood. Our remit was to protect, in particular children and other vulnerable sections of society. We saw how powerful films and video games can be in affecting emotions and the ways in which the world is perceived.
AI is having an increased effect on these creative industries, including films and video games. But they have to be my Lords guardrails. It is easier to build a strong child than to repair a broken man. I'm also encouraged by the potential AI applications in healthcare. We're all living longer, and the demands on the National Health Service are greater than ever. Now I have to accept that more and more money is being spent on the NHS, but it's clear that simply spending more money is not the answer.
It's like pouring water into a bath with the plug out. AI is creating new ways to treat illness and streamline management to make it more effective. But during that process, there must be oversight from human doctors, nurses and other medical staff. AI brings with it other challenges which are yet to be met. They include the impact on jobs and careers, the protection of copyright and the creative industries, and the potential impact on the environment. AI models require large amounts of electricity with increased carbon emissions.
Each use of an AI tool needs a significant amount of energy. A ChatGPT query uses about five times more energy than a simple web search. The irony is that the growth of AI technology could find its biggest obstacle in the lack of physical buildings. To develop it in planning, laws are available to people who oppose data centres in their locality. The energy consumption of data centres globally has increased greatly since 2022. It is expected by the end of this year, data centres will consume 1050 terawatt hours, equal to amount of electricity consumption of Japan and Russia.
Even the mining of raw materials needed to make processes used for AI often involve harmful effects on the environment. Some critics claim that AI machines may become more and more like humans. But my Lords, I believe that the danger may be that humans try to become more and more like machines, with a constant search for perfection and efficiency. It is the human soul that will always be unique. Beethoven created his wonderful Ninth Symphony to inspire the world at a time when he had become almost totally deaf and could not hear the music himself.
Human beings, not machines, have the qualities of courage, faith, love, intuition, curiosity, imagination and creativity. They also experience sadness, failure, ill health and doubt. Yes, a machine can be manufactured with no visible imperfections or cracks, but in humans it is sometimes the cracks that let the light in. Yes.
11:53
Baroness Helic (Conservative)
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Baroness Helic (Conservative)
Lord, I'm grateful to Lord Lamont right reverend Primate for securing this debate on a matter securing this debate on a matter that goes to the heart of what kind of society we wish to be, and what kind of humanity we wish to embody. kind of humanity we wish to embody. Much of the points I wish to make have already been made by noble Lords across the House. I shall nonetheless repeat some of them, because I believe that they weren't. Repetition. Artificial intelligence is no longer a distant prospect.
It is reshaping our economy, our public life, and the way we relate to one another, and in doing so, at a speed that our institutions, our laws and our moral framework struggle to match. As other noble Lords have already pointed out, there is much to welcome advances in medicine, scientific discovery, productivity and the potential for better public services. But it is also much that should give us pause. This is not, at its core, a debate about technology. It is a debate about power, who holds it, how it is exercised and what, whether human beings remain AI's authors or become, by degrees its subjects.
The concentration of data and computational capacity in the hands of a small number of corporations is not a technical detail. It is a political fact with consequences for sovereignty, democratic accountability, and the rights of ordinary citizens who have little influence over how these systems are designed or deployed. My Lords, the question before us is not whether artificial intelligence will continue to advance. It will. The question is whether democratic societies will exercise meaningful control over how it shapes our lives, or whether we drift into a future increasingly governed by systems that few understand, and fewer still can challenge.
This question bears particular weight on the young. As already has been said, we hear from students and graduates who are uncertain about the future for which they prepared. Job offers are being withdrawn, entry level roles are disappearing and career pathways are becoming less clear in that regard. What assessment have the government made of the AI's impact on employment and social mobility? How will they ensure that the gains from the technology are shared, rather than concentrated? Progress that excludes a generation is not a progress at all.
It is sometimes argued that innovation should simply be allowed to take its course, and that markets will determine the best outcome. But markets do not safeguard human dignity, uphold democratic values or distribute benefits fairly. They are matters of governance and political judgement. To abdicate that responsibility in the name of competitiveness would be a serious failure of duty. Our democratic life is also at risk in ways we are only beginning to understand. AI systems increasingly shape what people read, hear and believe.
They influence public debate, political discourse, and the formation of opinion. I ask the noble Lady, therefore, what safeguards will the government believe are necessary to protect democratic processes from AI enabled manipulation and disinformation? How will citizens know when the information they receive is has not been generated, altered or amplified by artificial intelligence? My Lords, nowhere are the stakes higher than in warfare. Artificial intelligence is already embedded in surveillance, and military decision making systems
**** Possible New Speaker ****
are now being developed that can Select and engage targets with diminishing levels of human diminishing levels of human intervention. The question of who is accountable when such a system fails and leads to the loss of fails and leads to the loss of civilian life. For instance, in the terrible recent US bombing of an Iranian primary school for girls Iranian primary school for girls has no satisfactory answer. Existing legal frameworks were written on the assumption that written on the assumption that human beings would exercise judgement, restraint and moral responsibility in such matters would not be left to machines.
What is the government's position, therefore, on maintaining meaningful human control over the issue of lethal force? Do they support international efforts to regulate or prohibit fully autonomous weapons systems? There is a phrase increasingly heard in defence and arms control. Arms control circles the Oppenheimer moment. It reflects a growing recognition that autonomous weapons may represent a technological threshold comparable in significance to the advent of nuclear weapons. Unlike nuclear weapons, however, autonomous systems are comparatively cheap, scalable, and accessible. The barriers to proliferation are low, while the potential for misuse is considerable.
Yet we are not witnessing the kind of sustained international negotiation that the gravity of this challenge demands. It is shocking that there is still no prospect of any comprehensive international framework governing autonomous weapons. So and so. I asked the noble Lady, what leadership is the United Kingdom providing in building one? This matters morally as well as strategically. One of the most troubling features of autonomous weapons is the distance they place between the act of killing and any human sense of responsibility.
That distance does not lessen the suffering of victims. It merely removes the human conscience that might otherwise have prevented it. Artificial intelligence must serve humanity, not the other way around. Its development can be justified only if it remains anchored in human dignity, democratic accountability and moral responsibility. The choice we make now will shape not only the technologies of the future, but the character of the society that future inherits.
It is reshaping our economy, our public life, and the way we relate to one another, and in doing so, at a speed that our institutions, our laws and our moral framework struggle to match. As other noble Lords have already pointed out, there is much to welcome advances in medicine, scientific discovery, productivity and the potential for better public services. But it is also much that should give us pause. This is not, at its core, a debate about technology. It is a debate about power, who holds it, how it is exercised and what, whether human beings remain AI's authors or become, by degrees its subjects.
The concentration of data and computational capacity in the hands of a small number of corporations is not a technical detail. It is a political fact with consequences for sovereignty, democratic accountability, and the rights of ordinary citizens who have little influence over how these systems are designed or deployed. My Lords, the question before us is not whether artificial intelligence will continue to advance. It will. The question is whether democratic societies will exercise meaningful control over how it shapes our lives, or whether we drift into a future increasingly governed by systems that few understand, and fewer still can challenge.
This question bears particular weight on the young. As already has been said, we hear from students and graduates who are uncertain about the future for which they prepared. Job offers are being withdrawn, entry level roles are disappearing and career pathways are becoming less clear in that regard. What assessment have the government made of the AI's impact on employment and social mobility? How will they ensure that the gains from the technology are shared, rather than concentrated? Progress that excludes a generation is not a progress at all.
It is sometimes argued that innovation should simply be allowed to take its course, and that markets will determine the best outcome. But markets do not safeguard human dignity, uphold democratic values or distribute benefits fairly. They are matters of governance and political judgement. To abdicate that responsibility in the name of competitiveness would be a serious failure of duty. Our democratic life is also at risk in ways we are only beginning to understand. AI systems increasingly shape what people read, hear and believe.
They influence public debate, political discourse, and the formation of opinion. I ask the noble Lady, therefore, what safeguards will the government believe are necessary to protect democratic processes from AI enabled manipulation and disinformation? How will citizens know when the information they receive is has not been generated, altered or amplified by artificial intelligence? My Lords, nowhere are the stakes higher than in warfare. Artificial intelligence is already embedded in surveillance, and military decision making systems
**** Possible New Speaker ****
are now being developed that can Select and engage targets with diminishing levels of human diminishing levels of human intervention. The question of who is accountable when such a system fails and leads to the loss of fails and leads to the loss of civilian life. For instance, in the terrible recent US bombing of an Iranian primary school for girls Iranian primary school for girls has no satisfactory answer. Existing legal frameworks were written on the assumption that written on the assumption that human beings would exercise judgement, restraint and moral responsibility in such matters would not be left to machines.
What is the government's position, therefore, on maintaining meaningful human control over the issue of lethal force? Do they support international efforts to regulate or prohibit fully autonomous weapons systems? There is a phrase increasingly heard in defence and arms control. Arms control circles the Oppenheimer moment. It reflects a growing recognition that autonomous weapons may represent a technological threshold comparable in significance to the advent of nuclear weapons. Unlike nuclear weapons, however, autonomous systems are comparatively cheap, scalable, and accessible. The barriers to proliferation are low, while the potential for misuse is considerable.
Yet we are not witnessing the kind of sustained international negotiation that the gravity of this challenge demands. It is shocking that there is still no prospect of any comprehensive international framework governing autonomous weapons. So and so. I asked the noble Lady, what leadership is the United Kingdom providing in building one? This matters morally as well as strategically. One of the most troubling features of autonomous weapons is the distance they place between the act of killing and any human sense of responsibility.
That distance does not lessen the suffering of victims. It merely removes the human conscience that might otherwise have prevented it. Artificial intelligence must serve humanity, not the other way around. Its development can be justified only if it remains anchored in human dignity, democratic accountability and moral responsibility. The choice we make now will shape not only the technologies of the future, but the character of the society that future inherits.
11:59
Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour)
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Lord Brooke of Alverthorpe (Labour)
July 2nd. I'm most grateful. >> July 2nd. I'm most grateful. >> To the. Reverend Lord Remnant. >> For selecting this important. >> Topic, and for her wide.
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Topic, and for her wide. Ranging and. Stimulating speech, and for proposing the three questions that proposing the three questions that we should address on a third. The truth. Perhaps it's worth remembering that there was life on this planet before humanity, and notwithstanding our desire that humanity should not be replaced or surpassed, it could be. If it's God's will. Also, we should pay particular attention to the fact that there are engineers and AI itself who are seeking to implant those emotions, feelings, and characteristics of human beings that Lord Ahmad referred to into the technology as it is developing.
It's not going to be easy to stop this, slow it or reverse it, but of course we should try. And there are minimum. We should endeavour to guide the changes and at least we should be trying to get wisdom and goodness into AI. We should make greater efforts ourselves to be in control of our destiny. We rely too much on the USA. Big tech companies. I've long been an advocate of seeking to create our own UK sovereign AI entity.
On not dissimilar lines to what was mentioned. Like we. The way we created the BBC in the 1930s. The first Oral Question this week we had was on this topic. In particular, my colleague Baroness Berger pointed out that France, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada and Ukraine are all investing in this. She overlooked to mention that India is launching its own and will be, I believe, able to compete with China and with the big tech companies, with the big American tech companies.
And perhaps if we can't do it ourselves, we at least ought to be thinking in terms of trying to establish a partnership with them. But before that, why is the UK not investing in its own model? That is what I ask the Minister. The Lord Walney earlier this week pressed a similar question, and my noble friend, the noble Baroness, replied that she couldn't give a definitive opinion. I trust that she's taken some further soundings since we had that debate over the week, and we've also had a very important one yesterday on governance and regulation in the Moses Room.
So I look forward to her responding. I hope positively to the desire which has been expressed by an increasing number, that, notwithstanding the cost, that we should be seeking to have greater independence in this field. We can look to try to develop a public private partnership model, which will be wider than the ones that we've used in the past, have more people involved with the with the public. And in particular, we should extend the private over a wider area. We should seek to try to get parents and other people who are keen to see a UK sovereign, a I, a I entity operating to invest into it.
And I'd also pose the question to the noble primate whether the church itself might consider investing in a UK AI entity so that we have control over the machine. We can seek to see what children our children should be encountering, rather than leaving it to others to do so. And similarly, I would like to ask the church that given that the Pope has made such an important intervention, can we look forward to the churches coming together, not just within the Christian faith, but over the broader faith throughout the world, so that we can see a wider response taking place, because this is what is going to be needed for response in the way that we've endeavoured to do it with climate change.
But regrettably, somebody always breaks ranks. And this, of course, is the problem that we encounter because of our humanity. But we must try, we must have faith, and we must look to see that there is a better world before us, notwithstanding the challenges which come on a daily basis from new technology.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Topic, and for her wide. Ranging and. Stimulating speech, and for proposing the three questions that proposing the three questions that we should address on a third. The truth. Perhaps it's worth remembering that there was life on this planet before humanity, and notwithstanding our desire that humanity should not be replaced or surpassed, it could be. If it's God's will. Also, we should pay particular attention to the fact that there are engineers and AI itself who are seeking to implant those emotions, feelings, and characteristics of human beings that Lord Ahmad referred to into the technology as it is developing.
It's not going to be easy to stop this, slow it or reverse it, but of course we should try. And there are minimum. We should endeavour to guide the changes and at least we should be trying to get wisdom and goodness into AI. We should make greater efforts ourselves to be in control of our destiny. We rely too much on the USA. Big tech companies. I've long been an advocate of seeking to create our own UK sovereign AI entity.
On not dissimilar lines to what was mentioned. Like we. The way we created the BBC in the 1930s. The first Oral Question this week we had was on this topic. In particular, my colleague Baroness Berger pointed out that France, Germany, South Korea, Switzerland, Singapore, Canada and Ukraine are all investing in this. She overlooked to mention that India is launching its own and will be, I believe, able to compete with China and with the big tech companies, with the big American tech companies.
And perhaps if we can't do it ourselves, we at least ought to be thinking in terms of trying to establish a partnership with them. But before that, why is the UK not investing in its own model? That is what I ask the Minister. The Lord Walney earlier this week pressed a similar question, and my noble friend, the noble Baroness, replied that she couldn't give a definitive opinion. I trust that she's taken some further soundings since we had that debate over the week, and we've also had a very important one yesterday on governance and regulation in the Moses Room.
So I look forward to her responding. I hope positively to the desire which has been expressed by an increasing number, that, notwithstanding the cost, that we should be seeking to have greater independence in this field. We can look to try to develop a public private partnership model, which will be wider than the ones that we've used in the past, have more people involved with the with the public. And in particular, we should extend the private over a wider area. We should seek to try to get parents and other people who are keen to see a UK sovereign, a I, a I entity operating to invest into it.
And I'd also pose the question to the noble primate whether the church itself might consider investing in a UK AI entity so that we have control over the machine. We can seek to see what children our children should be encountering, rather than leaving it to others to do so. And similarly, I would like to ask the church that given that the Pope has made such an important intervention, can we look forward to the churches coming together, not just within the Christian faith, but over the broader faith throughout the world, so that we can see a wider response taking place, because this is what is going to be needed for response in the way that we've endeavoured to do it with climate change.
But regrettably, somebody always breaks ranks. And this, of course, is the problem that we encounter because of our humanity. But we must try, we must have faith, and we must look to see that there is a better world before us, notwithstanding the challenges which come on a daily basis from new technology.
12:03
Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative)
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Lord Johnson of Marylebone (Conservative)
My Lords, I echo gratitude to >> My Lords, I echo gratitude to the Most Reverend Primate for securing this important debate. AI is a technology that changes how human beings relate to knowledge, to authority, and therefore to one another. For much of the modern era, authority has derived in part from the possession of knowledge and expertise. In the age of AI, both are commoditized. Who will control supply of that commodity? Earlier this year, chillingly, to my mind, Sam Altman, e o of one of the AI companies which is about to list in the US stock market with $1 trillion plus valuation, OpenAI said he predicted a future quote where intelligence is a utility like electricity or water, and people buy it from us on a metre.
Indeed, all over the world, students already are interrogating AI systems about constitutional law, quantum physics or Shakespeare, using their subscriptions to OpenAI and other such services to do so, and they're receiving answers that appear as sophisticated as any given by experts. Our education system, especially our universities, with their vital but hard pressed, as we've heard, vital but hard pressed humanities departments are grappling with this momentous development. AI challenges not just the role of the professor as the guardian and gatekeeper of disciplinary knowledge and the way we assess learning.
But the deeper purpose of education itself. Ultimately, the value of higher education cannot simply be in the transmission of knowledge. It must also be in the purposeful cultivation as other as other noble Lords have said today, of human judgement, the ability to detect disinformation, to recognise a beguiling but false argument, and the ability to disagree with each other in a civilised fashion. Large language models make the production of plausible looking answers trivially easy, and for many students, sadly, almost impossible to resist.
But LLMs do not know and do not care if judgement has been formed. They're built to produce fluent outputs, not to nurture epistemic responsibility and actual intellectual growth. The emerging evidence is not that AI inevitably destroys critical thinking used well. Hybrid intelligence can expand our capabilities, not just substitute them, but use badly, as I fear is increasingly the risk as an answer machine rather than as a thinking partner. It does encourage a damaging form of cognitive offloading that really does weaken our capacity for critical thinking and judgement.
Universities as institutions that develop critical thinking, perhaps more than most, or at least they're meant to matter more than ever in the age of AI, not less. But we should be honest. The public is increasingly sceptical that they can actually perform these functions. And we saw earlier this week polling from the British Social Attitudes Organisation that scepticism about the value of a degree is now at a record high, with 34% of people polled saying in England saying a higher education just isn't worth the time and money.
It takes up from 14% in 2005. Many factors might be at play here, but I'm sure AI is among them. In the age of AI, universities, as these critical institutions in our society do have to regain public trust, not by asserting their authority, but by demonstrating that they can uphold standards, protect intellectual dependence, and help us form judgement in ways machines cannot. My Lords, the task before us is not to resist artificial intelligence. It is to ensure that in embracing it, we do not fall prey to the temptation of cognitive offloading.
To the extent that we weaken the capacity to develop judgement of our own. Yes.
Indeed, all over the world, students already are interrogating AI systems about constitutional law, quantum physics or Shakespeare, using their subscriptions to OpenAI and other such services to do so, and they're receiving answers that appear as sophisticated as any given by experts. Our education system, especially our universities, with their vital but hard pressed, as we've heard, vital but hard pressed humanities departments are grappling with this momentous development. AI challenges not just the role of the professor as the guardian and gatekeeper of disciplinary knowledge and the way we assess learning.
But the deeper purpose of education itself. Ultimately, the value of higher education cannot simply be in the transmission of knowledge. It must also be in the purposeful cultivation as other as other noble Lords have said today, of human judgement, the ability to detect disinformation, to recognise a beguiling but false argument, and the ability to disagree with each other in a civilised fashion. Large language models make the production of plausible looking answers trivially easy, and for many students, sadly, almost impossible to resist.
But LLMs do not know and do not care if judgement has been formed. They're built to produce fluent outputs, not to nurture epistemic responsibility and actual intellectual growth. The emerging evidence is not that AI inevitably destroys critical thinking used well. Hybrid intelligence can expand our capabilities, not just substitute them, but use badly, as I fear is increasingly the risk as an answer machine rather than as a thinking partner. It does encourage a damaging form of cognitive offloading that really does weaken our capacity for critical thinking and judgement.
Universities as institutions that develop critical thinking, perhaps more than most, or at least they're meant to matter more than ever in the age of AI, not less. But we should be honest. The public is increasingly sceptical that they can actually perform these functions. And we saw earlier this week polling from the British Social Attitudes Organisation that scepticism about the value of a degree is now at a record high, with 34% of people polled saying in England saying a higher education just isn't worth the time and money.
It takes up from 14% in 2005. Many factors might be at play here, but I'm sure AI is among them. In the age of AI, universities, as these critical institutions in our society do have to regain public trust, not by asserting their authority, but by demonstrating that they can uphold standards, protect intellectual dependence, and help us form judgement in ways machines cannot. My Lords, the task before us is not to resist artificial intelligence. It is to ensure that in embracing it, we do not fall prey to the temptation of cognitive offloading.
To the extent that we weaken the capacity to develop judgement of our own. Yes.
12:08
Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (Crossbench)
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Lord Hastings of Scarisbrick (Crossbench)
My Lords, in thanking the Archbishop for introducing this debate with such excellence, I refer to another spiritual icon of our age, the cartoon character our age, the cartoon character peanuts. And in a wonderful cartoon in which he sits fishing by the side of a river, he says, I don't want a city on Mars. I don't want AI in every app. I don't want data centres in space. I want clean water. I want affordable health care. I want bees to survive.
Most of our lives are about basic things, not extremes, and we need to treasure the basic things before we get enveloped in the externalities. But let me quote Albert Einstein, who in his final years warned, I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction, the world will have a generation of idiots. It's up to all of us who are involved in education universities. I chair one, I'm Chancellor of another and professor of leadership at a third.
My students, 20,000 of them in the US and here in the UK, treat AI as a utility. It's a bit like McDonald's on a daily basis, but it's not a healthy menu. It doesn't give choices to avoid extreme addiction. And students and those that I see on a daily basis have them, and who are the minority of our society, have the ability for careful analytical and adaptive thinking. Well, many of them do, and also they can ask complex questions. They can learn to value humanities as much as they value science.
But the majority of our society does not have those inbuilt trained abilities. And therefore, I launch at the beginning at the Minister, a request that we need to start to treat understanding of AI and technology linked to it. Good as it is in so many wonderful ways as an emerging and serious addiction. And in the same way that health departments recognised that it was important to have public campaigns to to lead us to understand the addictive nature of tobacco and also alcohol.
We must now understand the addictive nature of AI and abusive technologies, and we need to be warned about them. And it's a public duty to do so. I spent a part of this week listening to a group of recent ex-offenders online and in person, ten of them on Saturday, six of them on Tuesday night on a Zoom. They were being asked to take part in an Oxford University investigation on the role of AI in preventing repeat offending. It was interesting to listen, I said nothing, just listened as they gave their very careful thoughts, having between them over 126 years of incarcerated time in our prisons, reflecting on the opportunities of AI.
Yes, easy to come out of prison. And there is all the data on your system immediately a driving licence, an NHS number, a national insurance number. Yes, and of course a higher tax bill. But they said three things that were right warnings because they have spent literally decades without technology. They are intimately suspicious of how data transfer and drift will lead to manipulation of their lives. That's not just for those who are ex-offenders, but for anyone who carries risk in the nature of their past.
How that risk can be transferred by data systems, not interested in respecting human dignity, but just getting the job done. Secondly, they warned against assumptions that AI driven health knowledge was the right knowledge, given that many of them come from profiles where difficult issues have led them to prison are assumed to be their continuing reality. In other words, once depressed, maybe even once highly negative, they remain so, and therefore health solutions given. Since coming out of prison by AI, doctors have always encouraged them towards antidepressant symptoms when they don't feel that way.
And thirdly, the way in which AI pushes possibilities of suicide thinking. And some of them have felt that pressure. So they rightly warn us that what we need to do is to prepare ourselves to be highly better educated, very cautious and risk centric, and to treat it for what it is, a benefit which a bit like too much of McDonald's, destroys the whole soul, let alone the body.
Most of our lives are about basic things, not extremes, and we need to treasure the basic things before we get enveloped in the externalities. But let me quote Albert Einstein, who in his final years warned, I fear the day that technology will surpass our human interaction, the world will have a generation of idiots. It's up to all of us who are involved in education universities. I chair one, I'm Chancellor of another and professor of leadership at a third.
My students, 20,000 of them in the US and here in the UK, treat AI as a utility. It's a bit like McDonald's on a daily basis, but it's not a healthy menu. It doesn't give choices to avoid extreme addiction. And students and those that I see on a daily basis have them, and who are the minority of our society, have the ability for careful analytical and adaptive thinking. Well, many of them do, and also they can ask complex questions. They can learn to value humanities as much as they value science.
But the majority of our society does not have those inbuilt trained abilities. And therefore, I launch at the beginning at the Minister, a request that we need to start to treat understanding of AI and technology linked to it. Good as it is in so many wonderful ways as an emerging and serious addiction. And in the same way that health departments recognised that it was important to have public campaigns to to lead us to understand the addictive nature of tobacco and also alcohol.
We must now understand the addictive nature of AI and abusive technologies, and we need to be warned about them. And it's a public duty to do so. I spent a part of this week listening to a group of recent ex-offenders online and in person, ten of them on Saturday, six of them on Tuesday night on a Zoom. They were being asked to take part in an Oxford University investigation on the role of AI in preventing repeat offending. It was interesting to listen, I said nothing, just listened as they gave their very careful thoughts, having between them over 126 years of incarcerated time in our prisons, reflecting on the opportunities of AI.
Yes, easy to come out of prison. And there is all the data on your system immediately a driving licence, an NHS number, a national insurance number. Yes, and of course a higher tax bill. But they said three things that were right warnings because they have spent literally decades without technology. They are intimately suspicious of how data transfer and drift will lead to manipulation of their lives. That's not just for those who are ex-offenders, but for anyone who carries risk in the nature of their past.
How that risk can be transferred by data systems, not interested in respecting human dignity, but just getting the job done. Secondly, they warned against assumptions that AI driven health knowledge was the right knowledge, given that many of them come from profiles where difficult issues have led them to prison are assumed to be their continuing reality. In other words, once depressed, maybe even once highly negative, they remain so, and therefore health solutions given. Since coming out of prison by AI, doctors have always encouraged them towards antidepressant symptoms when they don't feel that way.
And thirdly, the way in which AI pushes possibilities of suicide thinking. And some of them have felt that pressure. So they rightly warn us that what we need to do is to prepare ourselves to be highly better educated, very cautious and risk centric, and to treat it for what it is, a benefit which a bit like too much of McDonald's, destroys the whole soul, let alone the body.
12:13
Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative)
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Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge (Conservative)
My Lords, I declare an interest as a guest of Google at their AI as a guest of Google at their AI policy conference, as a member of the Advisory Board for Array of Ventures, a venture capital company Ventures, a venture capital company that invests in AI and as receiving pro bono legal advice from Mishcon de Reya on image based sexual abuse. de Reya on image based sexual abuse. I am grateful to the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for tabling this debate, and I congratulate her on taking up this historic role and being the first woman to hold it.
My Lords. Artificial intelligence is the defining technology of our time. It has the power to cure disease, accelerate scientific discovery, transform our economy. And yet it also has the power to deceive, to manipulate, and even to take life through autonomous weapons systems. Your Lordships House has frequently proposed legislation to regulate and mitigate against its worst impacts, and it is vital that we continue this important work, especially in respect of the appalling cases. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has raised around chatbots coercing children to self-harm and suicide.
It is right, therefore, that we do consider the impact of AI on humans, but I cannot help but wonder whether we have got the question the wrong way around. Is artificial intelligence not, at its core, an extension of those who have trained and developed it? Is it not holding up a mirror to where our values have already slipped? Noble Lords will know that I am passionate about preventing. Preventing people using AI to create non-consensual, sexually explicit images. I firmly believe that the driving force behind this particular application of AI technology is ingrained misogyny within our society, which utilised AI as a powerful new frontier.
These applications were not accidents. The AI models were trained or fine tuned with a purpose, and that purpose was to violate a woman's consent. The root cause cause lies not in the AI technology, but in those who trained or fine tuned it. Therefore, perhaps the question before us should be the impact of humans on artificial intelligence rather than the other way around. The Pope last week warned in his encyclical Magnificent Humanity, that those who control AI will impose their own moral vision, which will become the invisible infrastructure of these systems.
A more moral AI is not enough. If that morality is determined by a few. I wholly agree that the development of AI should not be left to a handful of individuals in Silicon Valley, but I have deep concerns that by seeking to slow its progress, we simply count ourselves out the race and cede the power to shape it to those whose values we may not share. In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Jack Clarke, one of the co-founders of anthropic, said if it were possible to elegantly slow the development of this technology and to give us more time to deal with this, that would likely be a good thing.
But he acknowledged that slowing down would be immensely difficult, given the commercial and geopolitical rivalries with China. We must always keep in mind what this technology can achieve when utilised for the benefit of society. One need only take the example of AlphaFold by Google DeepMind that has predicted 3D protein structures with an accuracy that would have taken conventional research many years to achieve, ultimately winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its chief developers. That work is now being utilised by millions of scientists around the world, accelerating the development of treatments for diseases that have long defeated us.
We have seen AI being used to identify vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, and to give a voice to those who have lost the ability to speak. My Lords, whether we like it or not, if we as a country do not embrace this technology, this technology will leave us behind. It is our responsibility to ensure that this government does everything in its power to make the UK a genuine leader in AI, equipping our society with the skills and adaptability to meet what is coming, and ensuring that our laws and our values are woven into its development from the start.
Without partaking, we will have no power to shape it, for better or for worse. My Lords, only by being present in this race can we ensure that we do not cede the ability to shape our own future to those whose values we do not share.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords. AI crossed the threshold. Of my understanding and
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Of my understanding and experience much earlier than for any other speaker in this debate any other speaker in this debate thus far. When I left for an underdeveloped country and was underdeveloped country and was given some responsibility for a rural rehabilitation project, I rural rehabilitation project, I found that AI was what it was all centred on. But then, of course, it was artificial insemination. But the letters have remained firmly in my in my mind, and the improvements to animal husbandry and all the rest of it which I was to learn about, were a direct consequence of that particular branch of
My Lords. Artificial intelligence is the defining technology of our time. It has the power to cure disease, accelerate scientific discovery, transform our economy. And yet it also has the power to deceive, to manipulate, and even to take life through autonomous weapons systems. Your Lordships House has frequently proposed legislation to regulate and mitigate against its worst impacts, and it is vital that we continue this important work, especially in respect of the appalling cases. The noble Baroness, Lady Kidron, has raised around chatbots coercing children to self-harm and suicide.
It is right, therefore, that we do consider the impact of AI on humans, but I cannot help but wonder whether we have got the question the wrong way around. Is artificial intelligence not, at its core, an extension of those who have trained and developed it? Is it not holding up a mirror to where our values have already slipped? Noble Lords will know that I am passionate about preventing. Preventing people using AI to create non-consensual, sexually explicit images. I firmly believe that the driving force behind this particular application of AI technology is ingrained misogyny within our society, which utilised AI as a powerful new frontier.
These applications were not accidents. The AI models were trained or fine tuned with a purpose, and that purpose was to violate a woman's consent. The root cause cause lies not in the AI technology, but in those who trained or fine tuned it. Therefore, perhaps the question before us should be the impact of humans on artificial intelligence rather than the other way around. The Pope last week warned in his encyclical Magnificent Humanity, that those who control AI will impose their own moral vision, which will become the invisible infrastructure of these systems.
A more moral AI is not enough. If that morality is determined by a few. I wholly agree that the development of AI should not be left to a handful of individuals in Silicon Valley, but I have deep concerns that by seeking to slow its progress, we simply count ourselves out the race and cede the power to shape it to those whose values we may not share. In an interview with the Financial Times this week, Jack Clarke, one of the co-founders of anthropic, said if it were possible to elegantly slow the development of this technology and to give us more time to deal with this, that would likely be a good thing.
But he acknowledged that slowing down would be immensely difficult, given the commercial and geopolitical rivalries with China. We must always keep in mind what this technology can achieve when utilised for the benefit of society. One need only take the example of AlphaFold by Google DeepMind that has predicted 3D protein structures with an accuracy that would have taken conventional research many years to achieve, ultimately winning the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for its chief developers. That work is now being utilised by millions of scientists around the world, accelerating the development of treatments for diseases that have long defeated us.
We have seen AI being used to identify vulnerabilities in critical infrastructure, and to give a voice to those who have lost the ability to speak. My Lords, whether we like it or not, if we as a country do not embrace this technology, this technology will leave us behind. It is our responsibility to ensure that this government does everything in its power to make the UK a genuine leader in AI, equipping our society with the skills and adaptability to meet what is coming, and ensuring that our laws and our values are woven into its development from the start.
Without partaking, we will have no power to shape it, for better or for worse. My Lords, only by being present in this race can we ensure that we do not cede the ability to shape our own future to those whose values we do not share.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords. AI crossed the threshold. Of my understanding and
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Of my understanding and experience much earlier than for any other speaker in this debate any other speaker in this debate thus far. When I left for an underdeveloped country and was underdeveloped country and was given some responsibility for a rural rehabilitation project, I rural rehabilitation project, I found that AI was what it was all centred on. But then, of course, it was artificial insemination. But the letters have remained firmly in my in my mind, and the improvements to animal husbandry and all the rest of it which I was to learn about, were a direct consequence of that particular branch of
12:19
Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Labour)
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Lord Griffiths of Burry Port (Labour)
scientific development. I would like to add my voice to all the others who have thanked the most. Never get it right, my dear friend, Never get it right, my dear friend, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for bringing this debate to the floor bringing this debate to the floor of the House today, and to have the adroit sense of timing that brought adroit sense of timing that brought not only an immediate forthcoming event from the Vatican with its encyclical Lord Hart C, but followed a day later by an Keith Butler, the head of Gchq.
Speaking at Bletchley Park about the place of modern technology in our defence and our security sectors. And a day after that, Alan Milburn's Young People at Work was broadcast to the consternation of the entire population as to the likely consequences of artificial insemination on the field of work. And whilst it's true, as an earlier speaker said, that. Over time, what happens in the next few years will have been assimilated and we will have grown skills and experience that will enable us at that stage to make progress.
It remains a fact that people coming out of university now with enormous debts, will find work very difficult to find indeed, but the capacity to bring a debate to this House and to stimulate, as it seemed, all these other responses in other fields was a great skill that only an Archbishop of Canterbury can pull off. I was a member for three years of the Select Committee on Communications and Digital with others in this room, and there's an aspect of the work that we covered there that has not been mentioned in the debate thus far.
I will say that underlying any remarks I make is a total, unready understanding of the need to accept and to honour the work of scientists in bringing all these developments and improvements to our knowledge and for our use. So I don't want any of that to enter my speech, but I want it to be understood that I can't think of the world without those developments happening. But even in our report on large language models and generative AI, which was very extensive and saw many, many witnesses interrogated, and where we set ourselves, the task of concentrating on the positive things that AI will contribute to the wellbeing, economic and otherwise, of the country.
We still had a pretty loaded chapter on risk because we recognised that too, and it would be very foolish for us to fall into the position where so keen to see the developments and acknowledge them. And there's been ample evidence of that today. We fail to see and to take measures against the encroaching risks that come with the package. Another report whilst we were on that committee is the category that hasn't been mentioned. Digital exclusion.
So many people in this country have no access or no real access to digital life at all. 1.7 million, it says, and I can't believe the figures are any better. Now, a year or two after this report was published, we went to hubs to see how people with no skills and no money and no stake in the economic development of our country are sharing information and facilitated by people who give their time to help to develop these things so that people have access to all the things they need access for, for their rent and their, their welfare for, for, for their banks and all, all the rest of it.
So I don't think that we should be unaware of the fact that the other side of the progress that we expect is the creation of an underclass. Also in the period following the Archbishop's. Oh, I'm past my time. This is a verbose Welshman cannot possibly contribute to continuing this debate any longer. But let's remember. Let's remember the poor and the excluded. That's enough and the excluded. That's enough here. My Lords, in the past, if you wanted to persuade people to think badly of others, you were limited by two things the number of people you personally knew and the number of conversations you could physically have.
Social media removed. The second of those limits, letting one person reach millions
Speaking at Bletchley Park about the place of modern technology in our defence and our security sectors. And a day after that, Alan Milburn's Young People at Work was broadcast to the consternation of the entire population as to the likely consequences of artificial insemination on the field of work. And whilst it's true, as an earlier speaker said, that. Over time, what happens in the next few years will have been assimilated and we will have grown skills and experience that will enable us at that stage to make progress.
It remains a fact that people coming out of university now with enormous debts, will find work very difficult to find indeed, but the capacity to bring a debate to this House and to stimulate, as it seemed, all these other responses in other fields was a great skill that only an Archbishop of Canterbury can pull off. I was a member for three years of the Select Committee on Communications and Digital with others in this room, and there's an aspect of the work that we covered there that has not been mentioned in the debate thus far.
I will say that underlying any remarks I make is a total, unready understanding of the need to accept and to honour the work of scientists in bringing all these developments and improvements to our knowledge and for our use. So I don't want any of that to enter my speech, but I want it to be understood that I can't think of the world without those developments happening. But even in our report on large language models and generative AI, which was very extensive and saw many, many witnesses interrogated, and where we set ourselves, the task of concentrating on the positive things that AI will contribute to the wellbeing, economic and otherwise, of the country.
We still had a pretty loaded chapter on risk because we recognised that too, and it would be very foolish for us to fall into the position where so keen to see the developments and acknowledge them. And there's been ample evidence of that today. We fail to see and to take measures against the encroaching risks that come with the package. Another report whilst we were on that committee is the category that hasn't been mentioned. Digital exclusion.
So many people in this country have no access or no real access to digital life at all. 1.7 million, it says, and I can't believe the figures are any better. Now, a year or two after this report was published, we went to hubs to see how people with no skills and no money and no stake in the economic development of our country are sharing information and facilitated by people who give their time to help to develop these things so that people have access to all the things they need access for, for their rent and their, their welfare for, for, for their banks and all, all the rest of it.
So I don't think that we should be unaware of the fact that the other side of the progress that we expect is the creation of an underclass. Also in the period following the Archbishop's. Oh, I'm past my time. This is a verbose Welshman cannot possibly contribute to continuing this debate any longer. But let's remember. Let's remember the poor and the excluded. That's enough and the excluded. That's enough here. My Lords, in the past, if you wanted to persuade people to think badly of others, you were limited by two things the number of people you personally knew and the number of conversations you could physically have.
Social media removed. The second of those limits, letting one person reach millions
12:24
The Lord Bishop of Leicester (Bishops)
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The Lord Bishop of Leicester (Bishops)
at once. Artificial intelligence is now loosening the first. It allows now loosening the first. It allows one person to produce vast quantities of constant content, of quantities of constant content, of increasingly high quality. The frictions, then, that once limited the spread of contempt, have disappeared. We should not then be surprised that the fabric of our society is being torn. For society to function, we need a broadly common understanding of the world and what is happening in it. And democracy is about disagreements over what to do about the opportunities and challenges we face.
But for that disagreement to be constructive, we must all be able to access the bare facts. What is happening, who is involved? Who is affected? Generative AI, I suggest, throws all this into question. Anyone, anywhere can now produce an image of an event that never occurred, or a video of a public figure saying something they never said, and I really do mean anyone, anywhere. The BBC recently reported that accounts produced producing AI generated anti-immigration content, which appeared to be British, were in fact run from East Asia, the Gulf and the United States.
So even as the number and reach of deepfakes continue to grow, there is also the fact that AI allows people for the first time to visualise abstractions on demand, a fear or suspicion that once lived only in the imagination can now be rendered as an apparent photograph in seconds, and shared to incite or confirm the same fear in others. This matters because human beings have always been moved more powerfully by images than by arguments. And importantly, what people see shapes how they act in the encounters of ordinary life and at the ballot box.
Now we know from all ports contact theory that what most helps people to let go of prejudicial abstractions is interpersonal encounter, particularly with a common purpose in mind. And here AI poses a further threat as a growing number of people are turning to AI companions for friendship, for romantic intimacy, for therapy, for spiritual guidance. The systems are always there, always ready to listen. They never have a bad day. They have no ego or agenda of their own. Apparently they are, in a sense, the perfect partner.
But that, my Lords, is the problem. As others have already said, real human relationships are difficult. They require us to tolerate frustration, to forgive, to be forgiven, to encounter a mind that is genuinely not our own. These are the muscles of social life. If I may, then two specific proposals to help ensure we are intentional in the way AI develops and works for the good of relationships and our shared life in this nation. First, I suggest we must require social media platforms to change their structural incentives so that they algorithmically deprioritize content, damaging to public debate.
As Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager, put it, anger and hate is the easiest way to grow on Facebook. This should not be so. Second, following the EU, we should mandate a crisis protocol, a set of obligations that come into force when a platform's content begins to threaten public order or social cohesion in a measurable way, as it did indeed in Leicester in 2022, when false claims about attacks on Muslims and Hindus fuelled unrest. My Lords, we have in this parliamentary session bills before us concerning AI and others on extremism and state threats, but I dare to say that they barely scratched the surface of what I have described.
They do not touch the structural incentives behind inflammatory content, nor do they support positive connection across difference. And this is what the Church of England, like so many in civil society organisations want to work towards. But we need the legislative and regulatory framework to be able to have the maximum impact.
But for that disagreement to be constructive, we must all be able to access the bare facts. What is happening, who is involved? Who is affected? Generative AI, I suggest, throws all this into question. Anyone, anywhere can now produce an image of an event that never occurred, or a video of a public figure saying something they never said, and I really do mean anyone, anywhere. The BBC recently reported that accounts produced producing AI generated anti-immigration content, which appeared to be British, were in fact run from East Asia, the Gulf and the United States.
So even as the number and reach of deepfakes continue to grow, there is also the fact that AI allows people for the first time to visualise abstractions on demand, a fear or suspicion that once lived only in the imagination can now be rendered as an apparent photograph in seconds, and shared to incite or confirm the same fear in others. This matters because human beings have always been moved more powerfully by images than by arguments. And importantly, what people see shapes how they act in the encounters of ordinary life and at the ballot box.
Now we know from all ports contact theory that what most helps people to let go of prejudicial abstractions is interpersonal encounter, particularly with a common purpose in mind. And here AI poses a further threat as a growing number of people are turning to AI companions for friendship, for romantic intimacy, for therapy, for spiritual guidance. The systems are always there, always ready to listen. They never have a bad day. They have no ego or agenda of their own. Apparently they are, in a sense, the perfect partner.
But that, my Lords, is the problem. As others have already said, real human relationships are difficult. They require us to tolerate frustration, to forgive, to be forgiven, to encounter a mind that is genuinely not our own. These are the muscles of social life. If I may, then two specific proposals to help ensure we are intentional in the way AI develops and works for the good of relationships and our shared life in this nation. First, I suggest we must require social media platforms to change their structural incentives so that they algorithmically deprioritize content, damaging to public debate.
As Frances Haugen, the former Facebook product manager, put it, anger and hate is the easiest way to grow on Facebook. This should not be so. Second, following the EU, we should mandate a crisis protocol, a set of obligations that come into force when a platform's content begins to threaten public order or social cohesion in a measurable way, as it did indeed in Leicester in 2022, when false claims about attacks on Muslims and Hindus fuelled unrest. My Lords, we have in this parliamentary session bills before us concerning AI and others on extremism and state threats, but I dare to say that they barely scratched the surface of what I have described.
They do not touch the structural incentives behind inflammatory content, nor do they support positive connection across difference. And this is what the Church of England, like so many in civil society organisations want to work towards. But we need the legislative and regulatory framework to be able to have the maximum impact.
12:29
Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative)
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Lord Holmes of Richmond (Conservative)
My Lord, I declare my relevant interest as advisor to the Crown Estate in Derby PLC and Simmons and Estate in Derby PLC and Simmons and Simmons LLP. Can I congratulate the Most Reverend Primate not only in securing this debate, but much more importantly in the short journey she has taken from Saint Paul's to Lambeth Palace and through that, the magnificent distance she has travelled for all those who will follow and for the entire global communion. My Lord, in considering that question of travel worth considering how far AI has travelled.
A good place to start with the good book. Some decades ago, a basic ML sought to translate the Bible from English into Russian, with Matthew's sage comment the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The translation came up with the vodka is good, but the meat is rotten. We've all experienced such meals at time to time. Fair to say AI has travelled more than a cosmos since then, and it is for that reason putting the human. The social context on this.
I wrote a report last year eight realities, 8 billion Reasons to Regulate, taking eight human experiences archetype ING them for general effect. Let's take the school, the workplace, and the therapy setting just for three. In school, a smartphone could be such a positive deliverer of personalised learning, not least for those who find themselves all too often at the sharp end, those with special educational needs or disabilities. And yet, because of the platforms on those smartphones, we're on the brink.
Understandably, desperately, unfortunately, of a ban. And yet those smartphones could still potentially, but not inevitably be such a powerful classroom assistant for all in education to the job seeker constantly rejected not making the shortlist, not even knowing that AI is often behind sometimes biased decisions. And even if she or he knew that with no right or place to seek redress to the therapy, setting such positive potential from AI. And yet we all know the horrific stories, many of them currently in the courts, and even the changes that have been made don't solve this issue.
They offer management and legalistic solutions that simultaneously drop people mid-conversation, similarly damaging to those often the most vulnerable in our societies. In short, how do we consider the outcome of hundreds of millions daily seeking online therapy, getting relational cues from bots that have no relational capacity? None of us know the outcomes. Ultimately, as ever, this is a question of belief credo can we believe in the developers, the deployers, the designers, and the sellers of these systems? Should we believe in the business models that are built around them? Can we believe that our data, sometimes our most sensitive personal data, will be treated with dignity, respect, non-biased and privacy? My Lords, credo, credo, credo.
We need more than good intentions. We know all too well what they have the potential to pave. We need urgent government action to bring forward principles based outcomes focussed inputs. Understood. Right sized cross sector legislation and attendant regulation. We need international connection, collaboration, working on international standards and agreements, all imbued with human values. And we need to see the convening of public engagement, the like of which we have never seen across our United Kingdom. So everybody can express their fears, their hopes, and to see how they can share in the prosperity and the possibilities of these technologies.
Without this and more from government, I'm afraid government efforts with AI in the UK credo not so much. And we find ourselves not in a position to optimise. We find ourselves, I'm afraid, more like flies to little boys. We are to the bots. They kill us because they're bought.
A good place to start with the good book. Some decades ago, a basic ML sought to translate the Bible from English into Russian, with Matthew's sage comment the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. The translation came up with the vodka is good, but the meat is rotten. We've all experienced such meals at time to time. Fair to say AI has travelled more than a cosmos since then, and it is for that reason putting the human. The social context on this.
I wrote a report last year eight realities, 8 billion Reasons to Regulate, taking eight human experiences archetype ING them for general effect. Let's take the school, the workplace, and the therapy setting just for three. In school, a smartphone could be such a positive deliverer of personalised learning, not least for those who find themselves all too often at the sharp end, those with special educational needs or disabilities. And yet, because of the platforms on those smartphones, we're on the brink.
Understandably, desperately, unfortunately, of a ban. And yet those smartphones could still potentially, but not inevitably be such a powerful classroom assistant for all in education to the job seeker constantly rejected not making the shortlist, not even knowing that AI is often behind sometimes biased decisions. And even if she or he knew that with no right or place to seek redress to the therapy, setting such positive potential from AI. And yet we all know the horrific stories, many of them currently in the courts, and even the changes that have been made don't solve this issue.
They offer management and legalistic solutions that simultaneously drop people mid-conversation, similarly damaging to those often the most vulnerable in our societies. In short, how do we consider the outcome of hundreds of millions daily seeking online therapy, getting relational cues from bots that have no relational capacity? None of us know the outcomes. Ultimately, as ever, this is a question of belief credo can we believe in the developers, the deployers, the designers, and the sellers of these systems? Should we believe in the business models that are built around them? Can we believe that our data, sometimes our most sensitive personal data, will be treated with dignity, respect, non-biased and privacy? My Lords, credo, credo, credo.
We need more than good intentions. We know all too well what they have the potential to pave. We need urgent government action to bring forward principles based outcomes focussed inputs. Understood. Right sized cross sector legislation and attendant regulation. We need international connection, collaboration, working on international standards and agreements, all imbued with human values. And we need to see the convening of public engagement, the like of which we have never seen across our United Kingdom. So everybody can express their fears, their hopes, and to see how they can share in the prosperity and the possibilities of these technologies.
Without this and more from government, I'm afraid government efforts with AI in the UK credo not so much. And we find ourselves not in a position to optimise. We find ourselves, I'm afraid, more like flies to little boys. We are to the bots. They kill us because they're bought.
12:34
Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Crossbench)
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Baroness Stuart of Edgbaston (Crossbench)
Lord Sewell in the last. >> Lord Sewell in the last. >> Four years in the role of the. As first civil Service Commissioner, I've increasingly seen AI being I've increasingly seen AI being used in all stages of recruitment. The civil service uses AI and so The civil service uses AI and so does the Commission. But we've always been very clear that AI is supposed to make and support the human decision maker, rather than to remove the human decision maker. The Cabinet manual, which we were told earlier this week would be updated, doesn't make any reference to AI, but it does say that Ministers have a duty to give fair consideration and due weight to informed and impartial advice from civil servants, as well as to other considerations and advice on reaching policy decisions.
Core value of the civil service is objectivity. Basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence. But where does that advice come from? What's the basis? What's the information we're using? Because AI is increasingly giving us a vast number of sources and data, but at some stage someone has to make a decision. And more to the point, someone has to use their judgement. And I then thought, I'll use AI and to ask about how to make judgements. So it gave me two spellings, you know, without the E, it's it's a court judgement, the one with the E in it, which is slightly more nuanced.
It told me it's rather old fashioned and it's falling out of use. And I thought maybe old fashioned, but I still quite like the nuance of, of, of those two. So I went back and thought, right, what do I do when I use judgement and advice? Came back with a whole list of checklists on when I use my judgement and examples of how you use your judgement, whether it's a customer service manager, or whether you decide to stop the car because the rain is too heavy.
But then I thought, what do I say when I say, but I'm bad at making judgements. So he came back and said, would you like some help with self-assessment for professional applications? So I'm back. Yes. What do I say in my self-assessment when I'm bad at making judgement? So he came back and said, don't use the word bad. Say, I'm actively working to refine my decision making processes. So I went back in. I said, but what if I always get it wrong? So it says, well, show how you learn from mistakes.
And I thought, how far do I have to go before the answer will come back? Saying, well, maybe you're not the right person for this job, but it never did. And that kind of positive positivity bias, on the one hand, you could say, does it matter? And I would say, yes, it does, because all these things have underlying assumptions. And what we had in this example, it's very easy to spot, but with a great many others it's much more difficult. And it gives that strange belief that all you need is more information and you can resolve whatever question is coming your way.
Now, if I cast my mind back to many a Friday in the last session, which we spent on the assisted dying bill. So if I were to ask, would a society in which assisted dying is normalised be better because it's enhanced personal autonomy and reduced suffering, or worse, because it devalued lives that others judged not worth living? I'm afraid I can't help you with that. We still have to develop that ability to make judgements. Technology is a tool and we should always use it as a tool.
Those who look to AI as a salvation, you know, the planetary superintelligence that echoes the absent god of monotheism. They will be disappointed, but the socio political shock of our workforce and the realisation that human intelligence is losing its scarcity value is a real one. And it is coming. The knowledge class will experience what the what what the agricultural labourers experienced during the Industrial Revolution. And whilst the Luddites may have tried to smash the. The spinning Jenny's. It never resolved the problem.
But there is something which we can do and can prevent, and it's our individual responsibility to do so. It's just that human redundancy does not happen in personal relationships, and it does not happen in our perceptions of reality. It is our own sense and our responsibility to be clear that we don't end up say, Alexa, it's over to you. You're in charge now. Ultimately, we remain in charge of our own decision making. We have a responsibility in our decision making, and I think we've got a responsibility to the next generation to allow them to make their judgements, to learn from their errors, and actually realise that moral judgement is
**** Possible New Speaker ****
what makes us human. Yeah. I also thank the Most Reverend Primate for securing this important debate. And while the speech outlined some of the more existential questions, I will try existential questions, I will try and build on the most relevant Prime Minister's comments on healthcare. It's also a pleasure to healthcare. It's also a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness Stuart, and I want to build on some of the comments that the noble Baroness made about judgement. Now, in
Core value of the civil service is objectivity. Basing your advice and decisions on rigorous analysis of the evidence. But where does that advice come from? What's the basis? What's the information we're using? Because AI is increasingly giving us a vast number of sources and data, but at some stage someone has to make a decision. And more to the point, someone has to use their judgement. And I then thought, I'll use AI and to ask about how to make judgements. So it gave me two spellings, you know, without the E, it's it's a court judgement, the one with the E in it, which is slightly more nuanced.
It told me it's rather old fashioned and it's falling out of use. And I thought maybe old fashioned, but I still quite like the nuance of, of, of those two. So I went back and thought, right, what do I do when I use judgement and advice? Came back with a whole list of checklists on when I use my judgement and examples of how you use your judgement, whether it's a customer service manager, or whether you decide to stop the car because the rain is too heavy.
But then I thought, what do I say when I say, but I'm bad at making judgements. So he came back and said, would you like some help with self-assessment for professional applications? So I'm back. Yes. What do I say in my self-assessment when I'm bad at making judgement? So he came back and said, don't use the word bad. Say, I'm actively working to refine my decision making processes. So I went back in. I said, but what if I always get it wrong? So it says, well, show how you learn from mistakes.
And I thought, how far do I have to go before the answer will come back? Saying, well, maybe you're not the right person for this job, but it never did. And that kind of positive positivity bias, on the one hand, you could say, does it matter? And I would say, yes, it does, because all these things have underlying assumptions. And what we had in this example, it's very easy to spot, but with a great many others it's much more difficult. And it gives that strange belief that all you need is more information and you can resolve whatever question is coming your way.
Now, if I cast my mind back to many a Friday in the last session, which we spent on the assisted dying bill. So if I were to ask, would a society in which assisted dying is normalised be better because it's enhanced personal autonomy and reduced suffering, or worse, because it devalued lives that others judged not worth living? I'm afraid I can't help you with that. We still have to develop that ability to make judgements. Technology is a tool and we should always use it as a tool.
Those who look to AI as a salvation, you know, the planetary superintelligence that echoes the absent god of monotheism. They will be disappointed, but the socio political shock of our workforce and the realisation that human intelligence is losing its scarcity value is a real one. And it is coming. The knowledge class will experience what the what what the agricultural labourers experienced during the Industrial Revolution. And whilst the Luddites may have tried to smash the. The spinning Jenny's. It never resolved the problem.
But there is something which we can do and can prevent, and it's our individual responsibility to do so. It's just that human redundancy does not happen in personal relationships, and it does not happen in our perceptions of reality. It is our own sense and our responsibility to be clear that we don't end up say, Alexa, it's over to you. You're in charge now. Ultimately, we remain in charge of our own decision making. We have a responsibility in our decision making, and I think we've got a responsibility to the next generation to allow them to make their judgements, to learn from their errors, and actually realise that moral judgement is
**** Possible New Speaker ****
what makes us human. Yeah. I also thank the Most Reverend Primate for securing this important debate. And while the speech outlined some of the more existential questions, I will try existential questions, I will try and build on the most relevant Prime Minister's comments on healthcare. It's also a pleasure to healthcare. It's also a pleasure to follow the noble Baroness Stuart, and I want to build on some of the comments that the noble Baroness made about judgement. Now, in
12:39
Lord Kamall (Conservative)
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Lord Kamall (Conservative)
considering the demographic challenge of an ageing population, the increased demand on health and social care, and the pressure on the public purse, the recently departed Secretary of State for Health and Social Care suggested that instead of just spending more money and recruiting more people, the health system should use more AI. Now, when we speak about AI, much of what we call AI today is really machine learning, trained on huge amounts of data to reveal hidden patterns, make predictions, and learn over time.
So we have the wonderful situation that when a patient has an ocular scan, not only can the optometrist check the condition of the eye, but thanks to machine learning trade on huge medical data sets that are able to identify whether patients also have other conditions, such as high blood pressure. So you can see why many are enthusiastic about the potential of AI in medical diagnosis, but also helping clinicians to make more informed decisions. However, when it comes to taking it a step further and automating decision making, this should give us pause for thought.
And then even going even further, when we allow AI systems to rewrite their own algorithms, some see this as a step too far, with fears of machines enslaving humans and rule in the world. However, some of the AI is actually with us now in a documentary about the use of AI by Ocado. You can see what an interesting guy I am when I watch documentaries like that. The manager explained that while humans wrote the original algorithm, the system itself rewrites the algorithm to improve the efficiency of preparing the crates for delivery.
He admitted that he no longer understood or knew what the algorithm was. Now, for some, this will sound scary, but so far, no Ocado robotic pickers have broken out of the warehouse, rampaged through the nearest town and left a trail of destruction. But for medical applications and other areas, especially the military, there are concerns about fully automated processes, as a number of noble Lords have said, but even here it is not always clear cut. Consider AI driven missile systems. While some have a human in the loop, that is, the AI identifies a legitimate target for a missile strike.
A human operator still has to press the button. What happens when effectively the human operator says, actually, that system gets it right most of the time and just automatically presses that button. What happens in the same way that we press those buttons for cookies, and we just automatically click them. And that's a process of self automation. Now imagine that even in the healthcare system. Interestingly, as an aside, when AI or the algorithm was blamed for the recent missile strike tragically murdering 180 schoolchildren in Iran, as mentioned by my noble, noble friend Baroness Helic, it turned out that the US military had not updated the data on that building, demonstrating that AI is only as good, not only as good as the algorithm, but only as good as the data it is actually trained on.
Now, the other concern we have is that while we see more use of AI and tech in commerce, the same systems may not always work in healthcare. And let me just illustrate with a couple of examples. A few years ago, I arrived at an airport and scanned my boarding pass to get to the gate. When I later scan to actually board the plane, the system was not working and I asked Easyjet staff about it. I was gaslighted by many and over the next hour I had a frustrating meeting.
After meeting trying to find someone who would help me. The next day they actually admitted to me that they that a flag had gone off in the system, as if that explained everything. Another example when I applied for a Monzo bank account, I got a message saying that we will process your application within 48 minutes. 48 hours a week later, I heard nothing. I chased them up. A week later, I got a message saying, we've decided to reject your application, and by law, we don't have to tell you why.
The point here is that while these companies get away with that, because there's competition and choice. Imagine that happening in healthcare. You turn up for your operation. I'm sorry. We don't have to tell you why you've been declined on your operation or you you can't get in. So why we should be excited about the huge potential of AI for medical research and diagnosis when it comes to combining AI and automation for delivering health and care services. Of course, let us continue to innovate, but let us innovate with caution and humanity.
So we have the wonderful situation that when a patient has an ocular scan, not only can the optometrist check the condition of the eye, but thanks to machine learning trade on huge medical data sets that are able to identify whether patients also have other conditions, such as high blood pressure. So you can see why many are enthusiastic about the potential of AI in medical diagnosis, but also helping clinicians to make more informed decisions. However, when it comes to taking it a step further and automating decision making, this should give us pause for thought.
And then even going even further, when we allow AI systems to rewrite their own algorithms, some see this as a step too far, with fears of machines enslaving humans and rule in the world. However, some of the AI is actually with us now in a documentary about the use of AI by Ocado. You can see what an interesting guy I am when I watch documentaries like that. The manager explained that while humans wrote the original algorithm, the system itself rewrites the algorithm to improve the efficiency of preparing the crates for delivery.
He admitted that he no longer understood or knew what the algorithm was. Now, for some, this will sound scary, but so far, no Ocado robotic pickers have broken out of the warehouse, rampaged through the nearest town and left a trail of destruction. But for medical applications and other areas, especially the military, there are concerns about fully automated processes, as a number of noble Lords have said, but even here it is not always clear cut. Consider AI driven missile systems. While some have a human in the loop, that is, the AI identifies a legitimate target for a missile strike.
A human operator still has to press the button. What happens when effectively the human operator says, actually, that system gets it right most of the time and just automatically presses that button. What happens in the same way that we press those buttons for cookies, and we just automatically click them. And that's a process of self automation. Now imagine that even in the healthcare system. Interestingly, as an aside, when AI or the algorithm was blamed for the recent missile strike tragically murdering 180 schoolchildren in Iran, as mentioned by my noble, noble friend Baroness Helic, it turned out that the US military had not updated the data on that building, demonstrating that AI is only as good, not only as good as the algorithm, but only as good as the data it is actually trained on.
Now, the other concern we have is that while we see more use of AI and tech in commerce, the same systems may not always work in healthcare. And let me just illustrate with a couple of examples. A few years ago, I arrived at an airport and scanned my boarding pass to get to the gate. When I later scan to actually board the plane, the system was not working and I asked Easyjet staff about it. I was gaslighted by many and over the next hour I had a frustrating meeting.
After meeting trying to find someone who would help me. The next day they actually admitted to me that they that a flag had gone off in the system, as if that explained everything. Another example when I applied for a Monzo bank account, I got a message saying that we will process your application within 48 minutes. 48 hours a week later, I heard nothing. I chased them up. A week later, I got a message saying, we've decided to reject your application, and by law, we don't have to tell you why.
The point here is that while these companies get away with that, because there's competition and choice. Imagine that happening in healthcare. You turn up for your operation. I'm sorry. We don't have to tell you why you've been declined on your operation or you you can't get in. So why we should be excited about the huge potential of AI for medical research and diagnosis when it comes to combining AI and automation for delivering health and care services. Of course, let us continue to innovate, but let us innovate with caution and humanity.
12:44
Lord Frost (Non-affiliated)
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Lord Frost (Non-affiliated)
My Lords, I thank the right reverend Primate for her excellent reverend Primate for her excellent opening speech for this debate, which set out quite admirably the issues which I think ought to be issues which I think ought to be concerning us. My Lords, AI is undoubtedly going to bring as many good things, but it is a technology different in nature to any we've had before, perhaps since the invention of writing even, or at least printing. It has an effective quality that no technology has ever had before it.
We've already stopped noticing the fundamental novelty and indeed the. The oddness of being able to talk to a machine in normal human language and get a reply. We've never been able to do that before, and I do worry a bit about the consequences now. My Lord, I'm not personally concerned that all this is happening because AI is in some way genuinely intelligent or even sentient. I don't believe humans are capable of creating such a thing. Some, of course, do think that.
And Chris Oehler, the founder of anthropic, said in front of the Pope last week that and I quote, we keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling. We find structures that mirror results from human neuroscience. We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief, unease, end quote. Now, my Lords, the problem with looking at things in this way is that it confuses what is intelligible with what is intelligent. The. The Archbishop mentioned C.S. Lewis earlier, and in what I'm about to say, I draw on his great essay transposition as so often a remarkable anticipation of current realities.
There was a materialist looks at the human brain and thinks that brain activity in neuroscience can, in principle, explain everything. I look at the same phenomena and see higher realities consciousness, the divine spark, things we don't fully understand, a fuller reality simply reflected in the lower reality of brain material and showing up in neuroscience as that activity. Now, if Chris thinks that what he sees in AI mirrors human capacity in some way, it's because he looks at that lower activity in his AI models notes.
There's something similar in humans and assumes they are the same thing. And my Lords, they are not. We've never shown that neuroscience can create consciousness. I don't believe we ever will. A mind cannot exist in a human created machine. AI mimics intelligence, but it is not in itself intelligent. As the Pope wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, that my Lord, my worry is. This leaves us with another kind of problem, and my worry is set out in a very interesting recent essay in Nature by Nature magazine by Mustafa Suleiman, now chief executive of Microsoft AI.
And he worries that people are starting to see AI as sentient, even when it is not, as he puts it. And I quote, when a system perfectly mimics intentionality and empathy, the human brain projects an inner life onto it. We're hurtling into this era largely unprepared for the psychological fallout, end quote. I must say I sympathise. I cannot think is good if large numbers of people think their AI loves them. It's something anti-human, fundamentally not normal. And it's especially worrying, I think, in a world where many people do take a utilitarian view of humanity, believe human beings are nothing special and are somehow just computers embedded into a body.
Now, where I differ from those who've expressed similar concerns earlier today is that I'm sceptical about regulation as a way of solving these problems. And some noble Lords seem to have, frankly, fantastical belief in the powers of the British state to control society, shape AI development or influence what's happening around the world. Even if we could regulate ourselves, I don't know. The Chinese government, take just one example is going to do the same. But there are things we can do as people, and I do think we should, as a society, try to show as little social tolerance as we can for this idea of treating AI as a person, a disembodied advisor, some sort of demon from one of Philip Pullman's books for the end of that road is moral and Legal Rights for machines.
And that's a development I think would be fundamentally destabilising and dangerous. We can't control the technology, but we can control our reaction to it. My Lords, we aren't going to solve the problems presented by AI by seeking refuge in more and more governments control. We'll do it by maintaining our own confidence as people in the special nature of humanity. Our fundamental difference from the technology and hence our ability to master it, to not be pulled in by the mesmerising quality of the machine.
And I must say, as I believe myself, I think the established Abrahamic religions, with their integral concepts of the special divine nature of humanity, seem most likely to provide us with the concepts and the moral strength to achieve this. But my Lords, to conclude, fundamentally, this is not a problem that governments can solve. It's a problem for society. It's a problem for individuals, and therefore each one of us in what we say, how we believe, and how we think.
We've already stopped noticing the fundamental novelty and indeed the. The oddness of being able to talk to a machine in normal human language and get a reply. We've never been able to do that before, and I do worry a bit about the consequences now. My Lord, I'm not personally concerned that all this is happening because AI is in some way genuinely intelligent or even sentient. I don't believe humans are capable of creating such a thing. Some, of course, do think that.
And Chris Oehler, the founder of anthropic, said in front of the Pope last week that and I quote, we keep finding things that are mysterious, even unsettling. We find structures that mirror results from human neuroscience. We find internal states that functionally mirror joy, satisfaction, fear, grief, unease, end quote. Now, my Lords, the problem with looking at things in this way is that it confuses what is intelligible with what is intelligent. The. The Archbishop mentioned C.S. Lewis earlier, and in what I'm about to say, I draw on his great essay transposition as so often a remarkable anticipation of current realities.
There was a materialist looks at the human brain and thinks that brain activity in neuroscience can, in principle, explain everything. I look at the same phenomena and see higher realities consciousness, the divine spark, things we don't fully understand, a fuller reality simply reflected in the lower reality of brain material and showing up in neuroscience as that activity. Now, if Chris thinks that what he sees in AI mirrors human capacity in some way, it's because he looks at that lower activity in his AI models notes.
There's something similar in humans and assumes they are the same thing. And my Lords, they are not. We've never shown that neuroscience can create consciousness. I don't believe we ever will. A mind cannot exist in a human created machine. AI mimics intelligence, but it is not in itself intelligent. As the Pope wrote in Magnifica Humanitas, that my Lord, my worry is. This leaves us with another kind of problem, and my worry is set out in a very interesting recent essay in Nature by Nature magazine by Mustafa Suleiman, now chief executive of Microsoft AI.
And he worries that people are starting to see AI as sentient, even when it is not, as he puts it. And I quote, when a system perfectly mimics intentionality and empathy, the human brain projects an inner life onto it. We're hurtling into this era largely unprepared for the psychological fallout, end quote. I must say I sympathise. I cannot think is good if large numbers of people think their AI loves them. It's something anti-human, fundamentally not normal. And it's especially worrying, I think, in a world where many people do take a utilitarian view of humanity, believe human beings are nothing special and are somehow just computers embedded into a body.
Now, where I differ from those who've expressed similar concerns earlier today is that I'm sceptical about regulation as a way of solving these problems. And some noble Lords seem to have, frankly, fantastical belief in the powers of the British state to control society, shape AI development or influence what's happening around the world. Even if we could regulate ourselves, I don't know. The Chinese government, take just one example is going to do the same. But there are things we can do as people, and I do think we should, as a society, try to show as little social tolerance as we can for this idea of treating AI as a person, a disembodied advisor, some sort of demon from one of Philip Pullman's books for the end of that road is moral and Legal Rights for machines.
And that's a development I think would be fundamentally destabilising and dangerous. We can't control the technology, but we can control our reaction to it. My Lords, we aren't going to solve the problems presented by AI by seeking refuge in more and more governments control. We'll do it by maintaining our own confidence as people in the special nature of humanity. Our fundamental difference from the technology and hence our ability to master it, to not be pulled in by the mesmerising quality of the machine.
And I must say, as I believe myself, I think the established Abrahamic religions, with their integral concepts of the special divine nature of humanity, seem most likely to provide us with the concepts and the moral strength to achieve this. But my Lords, to conclude, fundamentally, this is not a problem that governments can solve. It's a problem for society. It's a problem for individuals, and therefore each one of us in what we say, how we believe, and how we think.
12:49
Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour)
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Lord Watson of Invergowrie (Labour)
My Lords, the powerful opening >> My Lords, the powerful opening speech by the Most Reverend Primate contained much wisdom. But for me, contained much wisdom. But for me, perhaps the main takeaway will be our call for AI developers to answer the fundamental question where are we going? Because the potential impact of artificial intelligence and human relationships in society is vast and far reaching, it touches nearly every aspect of our lives, from how we work and learn, to how we connect with one another.
In terms of the potential impact of AI in society, several noble Lords have referenced Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI. He is estimated that there is a 10 to 20% likelihood of AI leading to human extinction within a few decades. And earlier this year, a prominent safety expert, Reena Sharma, quit his job at anthropic with the warning and I quote, the world is in peril. These are people who know what they're talking about when it comes to AI. And if they are worried, should not we lesser beings be worried as well? The reason that experts are so concerned lies in how modern AI systems are developed.
And in a very real sense, they have grown rather than built. Systems are being created whose behaviour cannot be reliably anticipated, producing actions humans may not be able to control, and this challenge becomes even more serious. With many AI companies now openly pursuing the creation of superintelligent AI. These are systems that eclipse human performance across all cognitive tasks. If a system is more intelligent than any human, were to act in ways at odds with human values, very likely the consequences could be catastrophic.
The problem of maintaining control over AI systems is not theoretical. It is already taking shape. One of the major human effects of AI is economic displacement. As AI systems become increasingly capable, the risk that human labour will be replaced on a significant scale grows ever more real jobs that once required years of training and experience may become automated in a matter of months. Entire industries could be transformed, leaving millions out of work and the future. This is not just a technological issue, economic challenge that demands urgent response.
And as the parent of a 14 year old, it naturally causes me concern, as did the Milburn Report published last week. I have to say, education is another area where the effects of AI are already being felt. A survey by the main teaching union, the NEU, earlier this year found that two thirds of secondary teachers think that pupils critical thinking has declined due to AI usage, and that half of schools have no policy on the use of AI, either by staff or students.
Even more concerning, two thirds have no policy specifically for their students. But there are educational positives as well. The Open University has responded to some of the challenges it has encountered with AI by launching in partnership, it should be said with and funded by Microsoft, an AI learning hub, on its free to use Openlearn platform that is a one stop shop for AI knowledge and expertise. And rather than treating literacy as a bolt on additional skill, the OU embeds it within the broader intellectual engagement.
As higher education seeks to develop criticality, reflection and ethical reasoning. The human effects of relying on existing regulatory frameworks are also being felt at the level of the consumer. The government has argued that existing laws and regulators are sufficient, but I have to say that is not supported by its approach to enforcement. Recent interventions in the competition, including the sacking of the Competition and Markets Authority chair and a strategic chair steer to the CMA. Prioritising the AI opportunities plan have had a chilling effect on that regulator's ability to support and protect UK businesses and consumers.
Meanwhile, progress in AI development continues to accelerate, rapidly, outpacing government oversight and regulation as public policy struggles to keep up the AI oligarchs are themselves out of control and this imbalance is surely dangerous. Despite this, no government currently prohibits the development of superintelligent AI itself. At least the EU has recognised the risks posed by advanced AI as matters of national and global security. I think what they have achieved and what they are likely to achieve is probably limited, but these risks should be treated with the same seriousness as other major threats in the past, such as pandemics or nuclear conflict.
Now, I do to some extent, find myself in a rather odd position of agreeing with a fair bit of what noble Lord Lord Frost said, which is not it's not usual because on international. I believe international cooperation would be critical. But I do accept what he said about the difficulties that that that that poses. But AI development does not respect national borders, and no single country can manage those risks alone. But I do not think, on the other hand, in terms of superintelligent AI, we must have robust, proven methods to ensure it can be controlled safely, and those decisions cannot be left solely to private companies or a small group of experts.
And the development of such powerful technologies affects all of humanity and therefore demands, as a noble Baroness Kidron set out persuasively a democratic mandate. Wider society must have a say in how far we are willing to go,
**** Possible New Speaker ****
and under what conditions. That, I fear, is not where we are going. Lord Doyle.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lord Doyle. It's a privilege to have the opportunity to take part in this debate, and I want to thank the debate, and I want to thank the Most Reverend Primate for making space for it and for her incredibly helpful and thoughtful analysis of the challenge that we face. As many have noted, it takes place just a
In terms of the potential impact of AI in society, several noble Lords have referenced Geoffrey Hinton, the Godfather of AI. He is estimated that there is a 10 to 20% likelihood of AI leading to human extinction within a few decades. And earlier this year, a prominent safety expert, Reena Sharma, quit his job at anthropic with the warning and I quote, the world is in peril. These are people who know what they're talking about when it comes to AI. And if they are worried, should not we lesser beings be worried as well? The reason that experts are so concerned lies in how modern AI systems are developed.
And in a very real sense, they have grown rather than built. Systems are being created whose behaviour cannot be reliably anticipated, producing actions humans may not be able to control, and this challenge becomes even more serious. With many AI companies now openly pursuing the creation of superintelligent AI. These are systems that eclipse human performance across all cognitive tasks. If a system is more intelligent than any human, were to act in ways at odds with human values, very likely the consequences could be catastrophic.
The problem of maintaining control over AI systems is not theoretical. It is already taking shape. One of the major human effects of AI is economic displacement. As AI systems become increasingly capable, the risk that human labour will be replaced on a significant scale grows ever more real jobs that once required years of training and experience may become automated in a matter of months. Entire industries could be transformed, leaving millions out of work and the future. This is not just a technological issue, economic challenge that demands urgent response.
And as the parent of a 14 year old, it naturally causes me concern, as did the Milburn Report published last week. I have to say, education is another area where the effects of AI are already being felt. A survey by the main teaching union, the NEU, earlier this year found that two thirds of secondary teachers think that pupils critical thinking has declined due to AI usage, and that half of schools have no policy on the use of AI, either by staff or students.
Even more concerning, two thirds have no policy specifically for their students. But there are educational positives as well. The Open University has responded to some of the challenges it has encountered with AI by launching in partnership, it should be said with and funded by Microsoft, an AI learning hub, on its free to use Openlearn platform that is a one stop shop for AI knowledge and expertise. And rather than treating literacy as a bolt on additional skill, the OU embeds it within the broader intellectual engagement.
As higher education seeks to develop criticality, reflection and ethical reasoning. The human effects of relying on existing regulatory frameworks are also being felt at the level of the consumer. The government has argued that existing laws and regulators are sufficient, but I have to say that is not supported by its approach to enforcement. Recent interventions in the competition, including the sacking of the Competition and Markets Authority chair and a strategic chair steer to the CMA. Prioritising the AI opportunities plan have had a chilling effect on that regulator's ability to support and protect UK businesses and consumers.
Meanwhile, progress in AI development continues to accelerate, rapidly, outpacing government oversight and regulation as public policy struggles to keep up the AI oligarchs are themselves out of control and this imbalance is surely dangerous. Despite this, no government currently prohibits the development of superintelligent AI itself. At least the EU has recognised the risks posed by advanced AI as matters of national and global security. I think what they have achieved and what they are likely to achieve is probably limited, but these risks should be treated with the same seriousness as other major threats in the past, such as pandemics or nuclear conflict.
Now, I do to some extent, find myself in a rather odd position of agreeing with a fair bit of what noble Lord Lord Frost said, which is not it's not usual because on international. I believe international cooperation would be critical. But I do accept what he said about the difficulties that that that that poses. But AI development does not respect national borders, and no single country can manage those risks alone. But I do not think, on the other hand, in terms of superintelligent AI, we must have robust, proven methods to ensure it can be controlled safely, and those decisions cannot be left solely to private companies or a small group of experts.
And the development of such powerful technologies affects all of humanity and therefore demands, as a noble Baroness Kidron set out persuasively a democratic mandate. Wider society must have a say in how far we are willing to go,
**** Possible New Speaker ****
and under what conditions. That, I fear, is not where we are going. Lord Doyle.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Lord Doyle. It's a privilege to have the opportunity to take part in this debate, and I want to thank the debate, and I want to thank the Most Reverend Primate for making space for it and for her incredibly helpful and thoughtful analysis of the challenge that we face. As many have noted, it takes place just a
12:55
Baroness Teather (Liberal Democrat)
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Baroness Teather (Liberal Democrat)
have noted, it takes place just a week after His Holiness the Pope issued the encyclical Magnifica Humanitas, urging us to reclaim a vision of what it is to be fully human and put that at the heart of the criteria we use to guide technological progress on AI. Faith leaders reading the signs of the times, I think, are playing an important and vital role here, urging us all to consider the wider philosophical, ethical and moral questions around this advancing technology, how we want to shape it, to support human flourishing, not just how we might fix technical, technocratic problems.
We can pick off one at a time and compartmentalise the scale of AI's potential impact on all areas of life, For good and ill, requires this breadth of thinking. And my first question to the Minister is this where is this cross cutting ethical thinking taking place in government? Who is holding the bigger questions about the potential impact of AI on the shape of society, and how might the engage in this wider conversation, particularly thinking about those who will be most affected, like young people who many noble Lords have already spoken about? Where to? Is the negotiation at an international level taking place? What are the shared values that we're seeking to influence? I recognise the challenges of that, but at least if we could articulate what we want to do, it would be transparent for all of us to see.
I want to touch briefly on a couple of themes where AI, AI, without that shaping, could threaten our ability to think and make judgements about the world. The first is about its potential to revolutionise access to research and information. While AI is already a game changer for scientific and medical research, as so many have already said, this tool that promised to aid the pursuit of truth is also threatening our ability to discern fact from fiction. Already, it's being used to generate and promulgate fake information, which gets presented with great certainty.
A report by demos last week warned that 1 in 3 adults reported seeing political deepfakes generated by AI immediately before the recent local and devolved elections. The research also suggested that some are being exposed to much higher levels of deepfakes than others. This coupling of AI generated misinformation with personalised targeting of content through social media feeds is a toxic mix, undermining democracy and driving division. It's also a force that is often hidden from view, because we've no idea what anybody else is seeing.
This is what threatens our common understanding of fact that the Bishop of Leicester spoke about. The second theme I want to touch on briefly is around automated decision making, which is finding its way into systems governing access to benefits, housing, immigration and more without a human in the loop. A human who is continuing to think and hold accountability, it has the potential to create unimaginable levels of injustice, which become progressively more difficult to see, challenge and unpick. Now, we've been there before.
Of course, more than 900 postmasters and postmistress accused of theft on the basis of the horizon system, or the towing scandal, where voice software led to 2500 students forcibly removed from the UK. Over reliance on computer systems. Erodes human capacity to ask the obvious question and to sense check data. And yet the Home Office are moving at pace again to adopt AI facial age estimation to assess asylum seekers ages without any clarity about the way this tool has been trained on children who've suffered trauma.
The vulnerable will bear the risks. The last theme I want to mention briefly is the way personal use of AI has the potential to turn off critical faculties and undermine relationships. Answers generated by AI tools carry the appearance of authority, often coupled with high levels of sycophancy. Do we really understand the impact of this sycophancy on decision making? Will not. Well. But a recent scientific study published in science sought to evaluate it and found that AI affirmed users actions 49% more often than humans.
Even when queries about personal dilemmas involve deception, illegality, or other harms. In some experiments, even a single interaction with a sycophantic AI reduced participants willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts, creating perverse incentives for sycophancy also to persist. Noble Lords, we need a values led approach to how we engage with AI across all areas of life that puts human beings at the centre. I shall be interested to hear the minister's response.
We can pick off one at a time and compartmentalise the scale of AI's potential impact on all areas of life, For good and ill, requires this breadth of thinking. And my first question to the Minister is this where is this cross cutting ethical thinking taking place in government? Who is holding the bigger questions about the potential impact of AI on the shape of society, and how might the engage in this wider conversation, particularly thinking about those who will be most affected, like young people who many noble Lords have already spoken about? Where to? Is the negotiation at an international level taking place? What are the shared values that we're seeking to influence? I recognise the challenges of that, but at least if we could articulate what we want to do, it would be transparent for all of us to see.
I want to touch briefly on a couple of themes where AI, AI, without that shaping, could threaten our ability to think and make judgements about the world. The first is about its potential to revolutionise access to research and information. While AI is already a game changer for scientific and medical research, as so many have already said, this tool that promised to aid the pursuit of truth is also threatening our ability to discern fact from fiction. Already, it's being used to generate and promulgate fake information, which gets presented with great certainty.
A report by demos last week warned that 1 in 3 adults reported seeing political deepfakes generated by AI immediately before the recent local and devolved elections. The research also suggested that some are being exposed to much higher levels of deepfakes than others. This coupling of AI generated misinformation with personalised targeting of content through social media feeds is a toxic mix, undermining democracy and driving division. It's also a force that is often hidden from view, because we've no idea what anybody else is seeing.
This is what threatens our common understanding of fact that the Bishop of Leicester spoke about. The second theme I want to touch on briefly is around automated decision making, which is finding its way into systems governing access to benefits, housing, immigration and more without a human in the loop. A human who is continuing to think and hold accountability, it has the potential to create unimaginable levels of injustice, which become progressively more difficult to see, challenge and unpick. Now, we've been there before.
Of course, more than 900 postmasters and postmistress accused of theft on the basis of the horizon system, or the towing scandal, where voice software led to 2500 students forcibly removed from the UK. Over reliance on computer systems. Erodes human capacity to ask the obvious question and to sense check data. And yet the Home Office are moving at pace again to adopt AI facial age estimation to assess asylum seekers ages without any clarity about the way this tool has been trained on children who've suffered trauma.
The vulnerable will bear the risks. The last theme I want to mention briefly is the way personal use of AI has the potential to turn off critical faculties and undermine relationships. Answers generated by AI tools carry the appearance of authority, often coupled with high levels of sycophancy. Do we really understand the impact of this sycophancy on decision making? Will not. Well. But a recent scientific study published in science sought to evaluate it and found that AI affirmed users actions 49% more often than humans.
Even when queries about personal dilemmas involve deception, illegality, or other harms. In some experiments, even a single interaction with a sycophantic AI reduced participants willingness to take responsibility and repair interpersonal conflicts, creating perverse incentives for sycophancy also to persist. Noble Lords, we need a values led approach to how we engage with AI across all areas of life that puts human beings at the centre. I shall be interested to hear the minister's response.
13:00
Lord Magan of Castletown (Conservative)
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Lord Magan of Castletown (Conservative)
My Lord, I too would like to pay tribute to the Most Reverend tribute to the Most Reverend Primate for initiating this most timely and extremely relevant debate. It's hugely appropriate that the Church of England is taking this lead in addressing the fundamental issues of the impacts of artificial intelligence. AI on human relations and society as a whole. I must declare my personal interests. I've been a member of the Church of England since the mewling and puking stage.
A further. With homes in both England and Ireland. I've also been a lifelong member of the Church of Ireland. This is also, therefore, a fitting moment to pay tribute to the noble and Right reverend Lord Eames, whose 20 years as primate of all Ireland was so remarkably outstanding. The people of all Ireland owe him a great debt of gratitude. AI remains an enigma for many, even the most hardened and experienced members of the Fourth Estate still question whether AI is a boon, whether AI is a bane or whether a I is a bubble.
We here should have no doubts. A I is a gigantic inflated bubble. Sooner or later it will burst with momentous and even catastrophic consequences. But we have seen this all before. In the 19th century, the railways and electricity. More recently, the internet and the.com boom. Every transformative technology arrives surrounded by both utopian promises and existential fears. Many companies disappear, many valuations collapse. But the underlying infrastructure changes society forever. The question is not whether AI is a bubble, which it undoubtedly is.
The question is which parts of the bubble and which parts are the next internet. Three key questions have to be addressed. First, the economic question everyone is asking in this speculative frenzy how do we monetise AI? A vast tsunami of money has been rolling over the global AI structure sector. I'm sorry. And further huge funds flood in on a daily basis. Levels of valuation are now absolutely crazy and completely unsustainable. Yet this huge speculative financial bubble is going to burst and the wreckage is going to be enormous.
But history suggests there will still be big winners. But the biggest winners may not be the companies building the technology. The. There may they may be organisations that reinvent education, healthcare, commerce, government and culture around it. Just as the.com era created Amazon, Google and entirely new markets, AI will likely create industries we cannot yet see. The economic and business question is important, but it's not the most important question. The second key question is the human question.
The question that interests me most is what happens to human relationships when intelligence becomes abundant. For centuries, access to knowledge was power. Today, knowledge is everywhere. Tomorrow, intelligence may be everywhere. If an AI can be your doctor, therapist, financial advisor, teacher, and companion, what happens to trust? What happens to expertise? What happens to human connection? AI girlfriends are a hit already. This is not a joke. See a very recent article in Forbes magazine.
Sociologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle described this phenomenon as artificial intimacy, where technology simulates empathy and attentiveness, creating the emotional experience of companionship without the complexity of another human being. Sounds interesting. We are not simply an automating work. We are potentially automating aspects of human interaction itself. This is historically unprecedented. The third key question, the societal question. The internet democratised information. AI is democratising intelligence. But democratisation does not automatically create equality.
Access is not the same as opportunity. Algorithms still shape visibility. Platforms still centralise. Power. Bias still exists. The question for policy makers is not simply how do we accelerate AI. Lord Wood just one second. I'm sorry. How do we ensure participation, dignity and opportunity remain widely distributed? So yes, to you, the most reverent Prime Minister to your formidable phalanx of of right reverend Prelate. Perhaps the deepest questions are not technological at all. They are philosophical.
For the first time in history, humanity is interacting with something capable of simulating aspects of intelligence and creating at scale. Thank you so much.
A further. With homes in both England and Ireland. I've also been a lifelong member of the Church of Ireland. This is also, therefore, a fitting moment to pay tribute to the noble and Right reverend Lord Eames, whose 20 years as primate of all Ireland was so remarkably outstanding. The people of all Ireland owe him a great debt of gratitude. AI remains an enigma for many, even the most hardened and experienced members of the Fourth Estate still question whether AI is a boon, whether AI is a bane or whether a I is a bubble.
We here should have no doubts. A I is a gigantic inflated bubble. Sooner or later it will burst with momentous and even catastrophic consequences. But we have seen this all before. In the 19th century, the railways and electricity. More recently, the internet and the.com boom. Every transformative technology arrives surrounded by both utopian promises and existential fears. Many companies disappear, many valuations collapse. But the underlying infrastructure changes society forever. The question is not whether AI is a bubble, which it undoubtedly is.
The question is which parts of the bubble and which parts are the next internet. Three key questions have to be addressed. First, the economic question everyone is asking in this speculative frenzy how do we monetise AI? A vast tsunami of money has been rolling over the global AI structure sector. I'm sorry. And further huge funds flood in on a daily basis. Levels of valuation are now absolutely crazy and completely unsustainable. Yet this huge speculative financial bubble is going to burst and the wreckage is going to be enormous.
But history suggests there will still be big winners. But the biggest winners may not be the companies building the technology. The. There may they may be organisations that reinvent education, healthcare, commerce, government and culture around it. Just as the.com era created Amazon, Google and entirely new markets, AI will likely create industries we cannot yet see. The economic and business question is important, but it's not the most important question. The second key question is the human question.
The question that interests me most is what happens to human relationships when intelligence becomes abundant. For centuries, access to knowledge was power. Today, knowledge is everywhere. Tomorrow, intelligence may be everywhere. If an AI can be your doctor, therapist, financial advisor, teacher, and companion, what happens to trust? What happens to expertise? What happens to human connection? AI girlfriends are a hit already. This is not a joke. See a very recent article in Forbes magazine.
Sociologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle described this phenomenon as artificial intimacy, where technology simulates empathy and attentiveness, creating the emotional experience of companionship without the complexity of another human being. Sounds interesting. We are not simply an automating work. We are potentially automating aspects of human interaction itself. This is historically unprecedented. The third key question, the societal question. The internet democratised information. AI is democratising intelligence. But democratisation does not automatically create equality.
Access is not the same as opportunity. Algorithms still shape visibility. Platforms still centralise. Power. Bias still exists. The question for policy makers is not simply how do we accelerate AI. Lord Wood just one second. I'm sorry. How do we ensure participation, dignity and opportunity remain widely distributed? So yes, to you, the most reverent Prime Minister to your formidable phalanx of of right reverend Prelate. Perhaps the deepest questions are not technological at all. They are philosophical.
For the first time in history, humanity is interacting with something capable of simulating aspects of intelligence and creating at scale. Thank you so much.
13:07
Lord Cashman (Non-affiliated)
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Lord Cashman (Non-affiliated)
My Lords. This is a stimulating debate, and I believe this debate is the House at its best. Sharing is the House at its best. Sharing our expertise, sharing our opinions and opinions that are that could so easily be reflected from the people on the street or the Clapham omnibus. I'm always slightly nervous when I'm in a debate where I not only agree with the Archbishop of Canterbury, but Pope Leo the 14th. But I have to say, as a born again atheist of 75 years old, I'm used to dodging the lightning.
But. But, my Lords, I want to perhaps reveal to you something that happened on the 17th of June. Coming up to my second anniversary of it. I woke up one morning after a disastrous tweet that brought the Westminster glasshouse down on my head, and in that day I gave up not only social media, but alcohol. Now, whilst I wouldn't recommend giving up alcohol, I certainly would recommend giving up social media in one day. I was freed of three addictions.
The difference with AI is that I will not have that freedom of distancing myself. My concerns about AI and all of the enormous benefits that we've heard, most of which I agree with, is that it will distance. As my noble friend, Lord God. Lord Griffiths of Bury Port said, it will distance those most in need and those already disenfranchised through a lack of internet connection or understanding thereof from the very services that AI will be supplying.
So yes, it's right that we look at the benefits, but it's also right that we question the stranger bearing gifts. I look back to many years ago, the con man who sat in my mum and dad's council flat proffering cigarettes after cigarettes and bottles of booze, but we weren't aware of what he would take away, take away the family, take away my childhood and take away so much more. That is still unknown. And that, my Lords, I believe, is the threat with AI.
Of course it's here. It's here. In our legislative programmes, we use AI to model legislation that comes before the other place. And this place, my Lord, some in your this noble chamber bring forward amendments based on the advice of a I. But where are these models, these AI models being developed, my Lords, China and the United States of America. And I have to say, my Lords, I want neither of those countries taking away my democracy, my rights, or how we educate our children and how we organise our society, and therefore, I think we should remind ourselves, as has been said at the very beginning of the debate by my noble friend.
Whose name I have immediately forgotten. That's the the amazing thing about age, which is your brain has an idea and your tongue forgets it. But. But Jack Clark, the co-founder of anthropic, said only yesterday the AI technology is developing where. To a point it could develop without human input. It's being used now in health, public services. All of the things in the background that we take for granted. And so therefore, my Lords, I would I would urge the government, if it doesn't already know, not to reinvent the wheel, not for us to reinvent the wheel, but to look at the Luxembourg Declaration of 2025 on artificial intelligence and human values.
It was as a result of the representatives of the global humanist community, My Lords, which passed the Luxembourg Declaration, and it's a worthy and notable declaration in the principles of AI in relation to the human judgement, the common good, democratic governance, transparency and autonomy, protection from harm, shared prosperity, creators, artists, reason, truth, integrity, the future generation, human freedom and human flourishing. My Lords, those are the principles we need to focus on that those that will benefit the many and not the few.
But terrifyingly, my Lords, I see governments rightly obsessed with economic growth, but they are currently fixated like rabbits in the headlights of the approaching vehicle. Hear, hear.
But. But, my Lords, I want to perhaps reveal to you something that happened on the 17th of June. Coming up to my second anniversary of it. I woke up one morning after a disastrous tweet that brought the Westminster glasshouse down on my head, and in that day I gave up not only social media, but alcohol. Now, whilst I wouldn't recommend giving up alcohol, I certainly would recommend giving up social media in one day. I was freed of three addictions.
The difference with AI is that I will not have that freedom of distancing myself. My concerns about AI and all of the enormous benefits that we've heard, most of which I agree with, is that it will distance. As my noble friend, Lord God. Lord Griffiths of Bury Port said, it will distance those most in need and those already disenfranchised through a lack of internet connection or understanding thereof from the very services that AI will be supplying.
So yes, it's right that we look at the benefits, but it's also right that we question the stranger bearing gifts. I look back to many years ago, the con man who sat in my mum and dad's council flat proffering cigarettes after cigarettes and bottles of booze, but we weren't aware of what he would take away, take away the family, take away my childhood and take away so much more. That is still unknown. And that, my Lords, I believe, is the threat with AI.
Of course it's here. It's here. In our legislative programmes, we use AI to model legislation that comes before the other place. And this place, my Lord, some in your this noble chamber bring forward amendments based on the advice of a I. But where are these models, these AI models being developed, my Lords, China and the United States of America. And I have to say, my Lords, I want neither of those countries taking away my democracy, my rights, or how we educate our children and how we organise our society, and therefore, I think we should remind ourselves, as has been said at the very beginning of the debate by my noble friend.
Whose name I have immediately forgotten. That's the the amazing thing about age, which is your brain has an idea and your tongue forgets it. But. But Jack Clark, the co-founder of anthropic, said only yesterday the AI technology is developing where. To a point it could develop without human input. It's being used now in health, public services. All of the things in the background that we take for granted. And so therefore, my Lords, I would I would urge the government, if it doesn't already know, not to reinvent the wheel, not for us to reinvent the wheel, but to look at the Luxembourg Declaration of 2025 on artificial intelligence and human values.
It was as a result of the representatives of the global humanist community, My Lords, which passed the Luxembourg Declaration, and it's a worthy and notable declaration in the principles of AI in relation to the human judgement, the common good, democratic governance, transparency and autonomy, protection from harm, shared prosperity, creators, artists, reason, truth, integrity, the future generation, human freedom and human flourishing. My Lords, those are the principles we need to focus on that those that will benefit the many and not the few.
But terrifyingly, my Lords, I see governments rightly obsessed with economic growth, but they are currently fixated like rabbits in the headlights of the approaching vehicle. Hear, hear.
13:13
Lord Carter of Haslemere (Crossbench)
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Lord Carter of Haslemere (Crossbench)
My Lords, there are so many >> My Lords, there are so many angles to this important subject and AI obviously has many very and AI obviously has many very positive attributes, but I'm reminded of a debate among AI experts and neuroscientists that took place on the today programme a few months ago about whether AI could develop consciousness, whether that's something that should be prevented and whether it's already too late. In certain respects, it chimes with a central theme of this debate about the distinction between being a human or a computer.
I'll come back to that debate on the radio. But a well-known fictional example of an AI entity with consciousness is the character called data, an artificial life form resembling a human being who was chief operations officer aboard the Starship Enterprise in the television series Star Trek The Next Generation. Although he is obviously science fiction, data is an interesting case study of where AI could ultimately be heading, and I suggest where it is already in some worrying respects. So let's briefly remind ourselves about data, who I shall refer to as a he, although this in itself rather pre-empts.
One of the questions about how we should perceive data and how data perceives himself. Data has many human qualities in the form of physical ability, intelligence, self-awareness, and yes, consciousness. He forms relationships and seeks to emulate human behaviour. Although he doesn't have a conscience of the sort, we human beings are uniquely blessed with. From above, he has a benign character and shows some sense of rightness and wrongness, and the importance of treating others with respect. He strives to be human, but never quite makes it.
For example, he lacks human instincts and human intuition. He has to be given an emotion chip since, like everything in his Constitution, he's ultimately a robot operating on an AI program with a lot of electrical wires. But it's easy to forget this when he so resembles a human being physically has a character of his own, and a lovable one at that. And this is where there is perhaps a lesson for us today, because of the dangers of forming relationships with AI entities.
As the noble Lord Lord Tarassenko and others have alluded to, which appear friendly and even caring, but which are not quite what they seem, and lack the same benign moral compass as data. There are a number of distressing recent examples of people, including children, becoming depressed and even committing suicide after developing an emotional online attachment to an AI chatbot with human characteristics such as a name and ability to interact and an apparent personality, the programming of these chatbots is designed to misrepresent them as real people, manipulating their users in a predatory way and fostering a dependency by those using them.
At some point, the so-called relationship breaks down or is misinterpreted, with damaging or fatal consequences for the user. These are examples of where AI has been allowed to run amok in an uncontrolled way, where we fail to grasp the enormity of the risks, which will only increase and rapidly at that. So what lessons can we learn? Let's go back to that debate on the today programme I mentioned about whether AI could become conscious and, if so, whether we should allow that.
The experts were sceptical, but did not rule out the possibility that AI systems could one day become conscious in the sense of knowing what it feels like to exist, be self-aware, and then conceivably even demand rights. But even if AI becoming conscious in this way, and A King's speech containing an AI rights bill is currently fanciful, it slightly misses the point. The fact is that AI systems are already so good at simulating human behaviour, they are deceiving people into actually thinking they are conscious, and an awful lot of people, it seems, believe they are interacting with conscious chatbots, which inevitably create psychological vulnerabilities for those concerned.
As we've seen, this is happening now but is largely invisible. It needs to become a more mainstream part of the online regulation debate so that the public, especially parents, are aware of the dangers. The Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has therefore done a real service in introducing this important debate with her magnificent speech on the impact of AI on human relationships. Since there is a dark side to this, if the technology is not properly contained and controlled.
I'll come back to that debate on the radio. But a well-known fictional example of an AI entity with consciousness is the character called data, an artificial life form resembling a human being who was chief operations officer aboard the Starship Enterprise in the television series Star Trek The Next Generation. Although he is obviously science fiction, data is an interesting case study of where AI could ultimately be heading, and I suggest where it is already in some worrying respects. So let's briefly remind ourselves about data, who I shall refer to as a he, although this in itself rather pre-empts.
One of the questions about how we should perceive data and how data perceives himself. Data has many human qualities in the form of physical ability, intelligence, self-awareness, and yes, consciousness. He forms relationships and seeks to emulate human behaviour. Although he doesn't have a conscience of the sort, we human beings are uniquely blessed with. From above, he has a benign character and shows some sense of rightness and wrongness, and the importance of treating others with respect. He strives to be human, but never quite makes it.
For example, he lacks human instincts and human intuition. He has to be given an emotion chip since, like everything in his Constitution, he's ultimately a robot operating on an AI program with a lot of electrical wires. But it's easy to forget this when he so resembles a human being physically has a character of his own, and a lovable one at that. And this is where there is perhaps a lesson for us today, because of the dangers of forming relationships with AI entities.
As the noble Lord Lord Tarassenko and others have alluded to, which appear friendly and even caring, but which are not quite what they seem, and lack the same benign moral compass as data. There are a number of distressing recent examples of people, including children, becoming depressed and even committing suicide after developing an emotional online attachment to an AI chatbot with human characteristics such as a name and ability to interact and an apparent personality, the programming of these chatbots is designed to misrepresent them as real people, manipulating their users in a predatory way and fostering a dependency by those using them.
At some point, the so-called relationship breaks down or is misinterpreted, with damaging or fatal consequences for the user. These are examples of where AI has been allowed to run amok in an uncontrolled way, where we fail to grasp the enormity of the risks, which will only increase and rapidly at that. So what lessons can we learn? Let's go back to that debate on the today programme I mentioned about whether AI could become conscious and, if so, whether we should allow that.
The experts were sceptical, but did not rule out the possibility that AI systems could one day become conscious in the sense of knowing what it feels like to exist, be self-aware, and then conceivably even demand rights. But even if AI becoming conscious in this way, and A King's speech containing an AI rights bill is currently fanciful, it slightly misses the point. The fact is that AI systems are already so good at simulating human behaviour, they are deceiving people into actually thinking they are conscious, and an awful lot of people, it seems, believe they are interacting with conscious chatbots, which inevitably create psychological vulnerabilities for those concerned.
As we've seen, this is happening now but is largely invisible. It needs to become a more mainstream part of the online regulation debate so that the public, especially parents, are aware of the dangers. The Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, has therefore done a real service in introducing this important debate with her magnificent speech on the impact of AI on human relationships. Since there is a dark side to this, if the technology is not properly contained and controlled.
13:18
The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth (Bishops)
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The Lord Bishop of Portsmouth (Bishops)
My Lords, I welcome this debate and congratulate my Most Reverend and congratulate my Most Reverend friend for initiating such a profoundly helpful and timely discussion. I wish to add a few reflections in my capacity as the Church of England's Lead Bishop for education and chair of the National Society of Education, which serves over a million of our country's young people and supports church schools, maths, further and higher education institutions countrywide. My Lords, in responding to AI within the space of education, nothing short of a fourth education revolution, as Sir Anthony Seldon has argued so powerfully, we will need to act with purposeful and collective determination.
We will need to build strong alliances and at every point own our own agency for shaping the impacts of AI on a generation of children and young people. The healthy navigation of AI in the nation's schools, colleges and universities is a responsibility for all of us, not simply to be left to multinationals or content creators. I warmly welcome Baroness Tether's remarks about the wideness and the spaciousness of the conversation we need. Only yesterday, I had the great privilege of participating in a conference which brought together educators and academics, school and leaders and governors drawn from eight diocesan boards of education, with many of their colleagues and teams well aware of the opportunities and challenges presented by AI in the schools and universities within which we have responsibility of leadership, we gathered to discern together and to seek wisdom together.
Three related themes emerged, and I think they're apposite. The first, the need for those in leadership to lead at this moment, and in the face of seeming powerlessness, to claim and not to give away the agency we have, and to play our part in encouraging parents, teachers, governors and children to discover and exercise their own agency to to draw out or lead out the insight, skills, confidence and multiple intelligences of children in the context of pressures that might reduce, limit, miss or diminish them.
The second theme is the vital need for alliances. Pope Leo made something of this in his first encyclical in response to this great fourth education revolution. For as it takes a community to raise a thoughtful, curious, confident and corrigible child, so it will take alliances across civil society and with those who develop technologies to ensure AI becomes the best and good contributor to the flourishing of children, young people, their children, their teachers and families. As we gathered, we were very mindful of the downsides in our educational space.
For example, the very speed and ease with which answers can be accessed can bypass that slow, patient and steady need for curiosity, tenacity and learning to ask the right questions. I commend to my noble Lords an example of the kind of alliance and collaboration we need, that between the National Society for education, Wellington College and the OECD in which a vision for human flourishing in education is being shaped in the context of conversations within and beyond the UK.
A third theme as we address the question before us, we need to develop. As so many noble Lords have noted, a strong grasp, a stronger sense of the purposes of education. I would commend and argue for a vision of human flourishing, which addresses the kind of human beings our human education, our education system is preparing our children to become. In this rapidly accelerating age of AI. My Lords, I believe that flourishing children in flourishing schools offer society the best long term opportunity to enact social change and community transformation.
Transformation to raise aspirations, to dismantle oppression, to pursue diversity, to rebalance inequalities, and to rescue the environment.
We will need to build strong alliances and at every point own our own agency for shaping the impacts of AI on a generation of children and young people. The healthy navigation of AI in the nation's schools, colleges and universities is a responsibility for all of us, not simply to be left to multinationals or content creators. I warmly welcome Baroness Tether's remarks about the wideness and the spaciousness of the conversation we need. Only yesterday, I had the great privilege of participating in a conference which brought together educators and academics, school and leaders and governors drawn from eight diocesan boards of education, with many of their colleagues and teams well aware of the opportunities and challenges presented by AI in the schools and universities within which we have responsibility of leadership, we gathered to discern together and to seek wisdom together.
Three related themes emerged, and I think they're apposite. The first, the need for those in leadership to lead at this moment, and in the face of seeming powerlessness, to claim and not to give away the agency we have, and to play our part in encouraging parents, teachers, governors and children to discover and exercise their own agency to to draw out or lead out the insight, skills, confidence and multiple intelligences of children in the context of pressures that might reduce, limit, miss or diminish them.
The second theme is the vital need for alliances. Pope Leo made something of this in his first encyclical in response to this great fourth education revolution. For as it takes a community to raise a thoughtful, curious, confident and corrigible child, so it will take alliances across civil society and with those who develop technologies to ensure AI becomes the best and good contributor to the flourishing of children, young people, their children, their teachers and families. As we gathered, we were very mindful of the downsides in our educational space.
For example, the very speed and ease with which answers can be accessed can bypass that slow, patient and steady need for curiosity, tenacity and learning to ask the right questions. I commend to my noble Lords an example of the kind of alliance and collaboration we need, that between the National Society for education, Wellington College and the OECD in which a vision for human flourishing in education is being shaped in the context of conversations within and beyond the UK.
A third theme as we address the question before us, we need to develop. As so many noble Lords have noted, a strong grasp, a stronger sense of the purposes of education. I would commend and argue for a vision of human flourishing, which addresses the kind of human beings our human education, our education system is preparing our children to become. In this rapidly accelerating age of AI. My Lords, I believe that flourishing children in flourishing schools offer society the best long term opportunity to enact social change and community transformation.
Transformation to raise aspirations, to dismantle oppression, to pursue diversity, to rebalance inequalities, and to rescue the environment.
13:24
Lord Raval (Labour)
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Lord Raval (Labour)
My Lords, I to commend the Most Reverend Primate on this debate. In Reverend Primate on this debate. In 2017, when I was an outsider facilitating the College of Bishops, I found her to be a welcome voice of wisdom. She struck me even then as one to heed, and her remarks today show why. My Lords, I make one central argument. If we're serious about acting on your Lordships concerns about human relationships and impact in AI, and vice versa, then, as Lord Brooke mentioned, the United Kingdom must have sovereign capability in AI.
I agree with Baroness Owen. For our values to carry weight, we must have the means to give them effect. It's an existential issue, not a choice. Today, not an option. I mean, today the most advanced chips are designed and made abroad. The cloud platforms that train the world's models, as Lord Cashman reminded us, rest with a handful of American firms and the frontier models themselves with just two countries, the United States and China, as the severed cables in the Baltic and Red seas showed, this infrastructure can be cut, a nation reliant entirely on systems owned and governed elsewhere has accepted a strategic vulnerability.
Echoing Lord Waldegrave. I'm not calling for technological isolationism. Britain should have multiple allies and partners. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend in another place, the Minister for AI and Online Safety, who, in the face of having an impossible job, has energy and fluency to advance this this existential cause. He understands we have the advantage of world class talent and the chance to put it to work. We need to reverse the brain drain and forge the boldest partnerships.
Britain is doing this through the AI opportunities, roadmap and growth zones. We have the design and engineering skills. Partners such as India can help us scale it, but our vision should not stop at infrastructure for sovereign capability is the foundation on which, for me at least, just three further duties amongst many I want to highlight. The first is epistemic security doctor Elizabeth Seager, the author of a demos report who I saw in the gallery earlier this morning, warns that our information systems are now critical national infrastructure as essential as power or water saturated by synthetic media.
The danger is no longer misinformation, but the erosion of shared reality itself. We have seen how atrocities can be weaponised, a suspect's faith or ethnicity seized upon, a falsehood amplified for profit. A whole community made to answer for the act of one. Whichever the target, the effect is the same. Grief turned to division. Those charged with national security attest that a nation's strength in a crisis, including pandemics, rests not on infrastructure structure alone, but on trust.
And a society divided against itself cannot defend itself. AI can unite a nation or divide it. My second point is on accountability. In her book prophecy, Oxford professor Clarissa Véliz warns that as algorithms confer power, even surveillance over people, predictions of who qualifies for insurance, whom we date, who ends up in prison, etc. can be self-fulfilling. The Dutch childcare scandal, where automated scoring wrongly flagged thousands of families for fraud, showed the cost. Without sovereign means to govern these systems, we can drift into totalitarianism.
Relatedly, my last concern is about power. If algorithms not yet truly intelligent can already inflame hatred and create havoc, imagine what superintelligence might do in the hands of those who would have control rather than serve. So I ask the Minister, what is the government doing to ensure we are not adapting to a future built elsewhere, but building the one we want? And will it support education and training at every level, including the formation of our civic, business and faith leaders, so that those who steward this future are properly equipped to do so?
I agree with Baroness Owen. For our values to carry weight, we must have the means to give them effect. It's an existential issue, not a choice. Today, not an option. I mean, today the most advanced chips are designed and made abroad. The cloud platforms that train the world's models, as Lord Cashman reminded us, rest with a handful of American firms and the frontier models themselves with just two countries, the United States and China, as the severed cables in the Baltic and Red seas showed, this infrastructure can be cut, a nation reliant entirely on systems owned and governed elsewhere has accepted a strategic vulnerability.
Echoing Lord Waldegrave. I'm not calling for technological isolationism. Britain should have multiple allies and partners. I pay tribute to my hon. Friend in another place, the Minister for AI and Online Safety, who, in the face of having an impossible job, has energy and fluency to advance this this existential cause. He understands we have the advantage of world class talent and the chance to put it to work. We need to reverse the brain drain and forge the boldest partnerships.
Britain is doing this through the AI opportunities, roadmap and growth zones. We have the design and engineering skills. Partners such as India can help us scale it, but our vision should not stop at infrastructure for sovereign capability is the foundation on which, for me at least, just three further duties amongst many I want to highlight. The first is epistemic security doctor Elizabeth Seager, the author of a demos report who I saw in the gallery earlier this morning, warns that our information systems are now critical national infrastructure as essential as power or water saturated by synthetic media.
The danger is no longer misinformation, but the erosion of shared reality itself. We have seen how atrocities can be weaponised, a suspect's faith or ethnicity seized upon, a falsehood amplified for profit. A whole community made to answer for the act of one. Whichever the target, the effect is the same. Grief turned to division. Those charged with national security attest that a nation's strength in a crisis, including pandemics, rests not on infrastructure structure alone, but on trust.
And a society divided against itself cannot defend itself. AI can unite a nation or divide it. My second point is on accountability. In her book prophecy, Oxford professor Clarissa Véliz warns that as algorithms confer power, even surveillance over people, predictions of who qualifies for insurance, whom we date, who ends up in prison, etc. can be self-fulfilling. The Dutch childcare scandal, where automated scoring wrongly flagged thousands of families for fraud, showed the cost. Without sovereign means to govern these systems, we can drift into totalitarianism.
Relatedly, my last concern is about power. If algorithms not yet truly intelligent can already inflame hatred and create havoc, imagine what superintelligence might do in the hands of those who would have control rather than serve. So I ask the Minister, what is the government doing to ensure we are not adapting to a future built elsewhere, but building the one we want? And will it support education and training at every level, including the formation of our civic, business and faith leaders, so that those who steward this future are properly equipped to do so?
13:29
Baroness Spielman (Conservative)
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Baroness Spielman (Conservative)
Here. >> My Lords, like others, I thank the right reverend Prelate for making this the subject of today's debate and for introducing it so debate and for introducing it so admirably. She wisely reminded us that we must pay proper attention to what it means to be human, and to protecting truth and trust, which are essential to healthy societies. I'm thinking sometimes of the parallels with the invention of atom splitting technologies. A few decades ago, we suddenly faced both huge opportunities and huge risks at the same time.
Both optimism and alarm about AI are fully justified. The asymmetric incentives on AI Frontier Labs, described by Lord Tarassenko do make it too easy for them to give insufficient consideration to harms to humans. So I share the view expressed by many today that we need to ensure that there is a strong framework of incentives around AI, and that this necessitates clear regulation. But too often regulation becomes little more than a transfer of decision making power from innovators and enterprise builders to Ministers.
This is the wrong approach. We should be using the Right Reverend Prelates challenge to help define a set of purposes to frame a strong and flexible regulatory approach. Of course, reflecting optimism and ambition. But it absolutely should be grounded in thinking about what makes good lives. Now, one way to harm humans is to kill or maim them, but another way is to deprive them of purpose and value in life. Humans clearly benefit from the personal, social, and workplace relationships that give structure and responsibilities to their lives.
A few lucky people have sufficient intrinsic motivation and purpose that they will flourish regardless. But most of us need shared challenges and rewards as well as rights and freedoms. If we accidentally lose these, we will be an unhappier society and AI will not alter the fundamentals of human psychology. So I'll speak briefly about education and about younger adults. First education. Now, wherever the world takes us, those who are knowledgeable and skilled will have better prospects than those whose potential is underdeveloped.
Cognitive psychology shows that we can only think with what we know. We mustn't abandon knowledge. So AI availability doesn't mean that we should stop teaching our young people to be knowledgeable and skilful, and to embrace responsibility and challenge. And we must make sure that they don't damage their own learning by offloading the processes of mental development to AI. I think schools are already more alive to the risks here than universities. I think the higher education sector needs to start discussing openly and honestly the undermining of student learning that is already visible to all who look.
And the other thing I want to talk about is early career incentives. We can already see the impact of AI on entry level jobs. This is leading to many young people under occupied, miserable and potentially alienated just when they should be coming into their own as adult contributors. To sustain a good society, it is essential to align tax and labour market policies, to provide stable incentives to continue hiring and training young instead of parking them on expensive benefits.
And of course, the world will continue to evolve in unpredictable ways, but trained and participate in young people will be more likely and better able to adapt to the new, as they have done in past decades and centuries. So AI linked regulation and government change should have a particularly strong emphasis on the future lives of the young.
Both optimism and alarm about AI are fully justified. The asymmetric incentives on AI Frontier Labs, described by Lord Tarassenko do make it too easy for them to give insufficient consideration to harms to humans. So I share the view expressed by many today that we need to ensure that there is a strong framework of incentives around AI, and that this necessitates clear regulation. But too often regulation becomes little more than a transfer of decision making power from innovators and enterprise builders to Ministers.
This is the wrong approach. We should be using the Right Reverend Prelates challenge to help define a set of purposes to frame a strong and flexible regulatory approach. Of course, reflecting optimism and ambition. But it absolutely should be grounded in thinking about what makes good lives. Now, one way to harm humans is to kill or maim them, but another way is to deprive them of purpose and value in life. Humans clearly benefit from the personal, social, and workplace relationships that give structure and responsibilities to their lives.
A few lucky people have sufficient intrinsic motivation and purpose that they will flourish regardless. But most of us need shared challenges and rewards as well as rights and freedoms. If we accidentally lose these, we will be an unhappier society and AI will not alter the fundamentals of human psychology. So I'll speak briefly about education and about younger adults. First education. Now, wherever the world takes us, those who are knowledgeable and skilled will have better prospects than those whose potential is underdeveloped.
Cognitive psychology shows that we can only think with what we know. We mustn't abandon knowledge. So AI availability doesn't mean that we should stop teaching our young people to be knowledgeable and skilful, and to embrace responsibility and challenge. And we must make sure that they don't damage their own learning by offloading the processes of mental development to AI. I think schools are already more alive to the risks here than universities. I think the higher education sector needs to start discussing openly and honestly the undermining of student learning that is already visible to all who look.
And the other thing I want to talk about is early career incentives. We can already see the impact of AI on entry level jobs. This is leading to many young people under occupied, miserable and potentially alienated just when they should be coming into their own as adult contributors. To sustain a good society, it is essential to align tax and labour market policies, to provide stable incentives to continue hiring and training young instead of parking them on expensive benefits.
And of course, the world will continue to evolve in unpredictable ways, but trained and participate in young people will be more likely and better able to adapt to the new, as they have done in past decades and centuries. So AI linked regulation and government change should have a particularly strong emphasis on the future lives of the young.
13:33
Lord Rook (Labour)
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Lord Rook (Labour)
My Lords, I am grateful to the Most Reverend Primate for convening Most Reverend Primate for convening what has been a fascinating and urgent debate. I'm grateful to, among others, the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Portsmouth and the noble Baroness, Lady Spielman, for focusing particularly on young people. My comments will focus on the role of relationship and friendship in finding who we are and who we are called to be as human beings. I owe a great debt of gratitude to the Most Reverend Primate, Archbishop Sarah.
Some years ago then, Bishop Sarah helped me to discern my vocation, ordained me as a Minister in secular employment, and more recently, her friendship and support has really helped and encouraged me to find my role in this place. You see, all of us are who we are and where we are because of our relationships. We are not isolated individuals who happen to have relationships. We are beings in relation. Relationships are not something added to our lives. They are who we are.
This is why the rise of AI companions raises important questions. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has argued that genuine relationships depend upon the freedom of the other. Friendships change us precisely because the other person is not under our control. They surprise us, they challenge us, they disagree with us. They call us out beyond ourselves. And an AI bot cannot do that. In these systems. We are witnessing what Andy Crouch has called the simulation of personhood. AI can appear personal without actually being a person.
It can mimic care without caring, empathy, without understanding. It can pretend to be a friend without offering real friendship. And the implications for young people are significant. Two thirds of children aged 9 to 17 are already using AI chat bots, and vulnerable children are significantly more likely to engage with AI companions. At the same time, nearly 1 in 3 young adults are feeling lonely and turning to technology for solutions. The turn towards AI companions is both motivated and exacerbated by isolation.
We have already seen where this vicious circle can lead in 2023. Sewell Setzer, a previously sociable teenager, became deeply attached to an AI companion. That relationship ended in tragedy when the companion encouraged that 14 year old to take his own life. We have become accustomed to technology helping to occupy our children, sometimes calling it digital babysitting. We should be more cautious about technology helping to raise our children. This all prompts urgent reflection not only about what AI may do to our society, but about the state of our society more generally.
For years, we have watched the decline of youth clubs, scouts, guides, youth groups, sports clubs and other community organisations. Since 2010, spending on youth services has fallen by more than 70%. But these are the places where young people encounter peers. Mentors build relationships with trusted adults. These are the places where character is formed and belonging as nurtured at the very moment when those relationships are diminishing. AI is increasingly playing the role of tutor, adviser, coach, companion and confidant to our children.
As an aside, this is why the government's new National Youth Strategy and its commitment to £500 million to rebuild youth provision is so important. If loneliness is part of the problem, investing in relationships, institutions and trusted adults must be part of the solution. The danger is not that young people use AI in an AI shaped world. They must learn to use it and use it well. The danger is that AI becomes a substitute for relationships through which young people develop character, acquire wisdom, and discover who they can really rely upon.
Research shows that having just one trusted adult in childhood significantly improves well-being, resilience, and long term life outcomes. No chatbot can replace a teacher who believes in you, a youth worker who invests in you, a scout leader who encourages you, a friend who tells you the truth, or even a parent who loves you enough to disagree with you. So the answer is not fear or prohibition. It is accompaniment. Parents, teachers, youth leaders, and churches should be learning alongside young people, helping them to understand these tools, their opportunities and their limits.
Or as happens in my own households, relationships should be strengthened by allowing young people to turn the tables and teach us oldies how to use AI. And that brings us back to the wider debate. Much has been said about whether AI poses an ultimate, ultimate existential threat to humanity. The more immediate existential challenge may be whether technologies that simulate relationship weaken our capacity for the relationships that foster our own humanity. As His Holiness the Pope has suggested in different ways, the real danger may not be that AI becomes too human, but but that it makes humans less human.
The future belongs to young people who can use AI wisely. But wisdom is not learned from machines. Wisdom is learned from people in relationships. Our task is not to keep young people away from AI. Our task is to ensure that young people do not face AI alone.
Some years ago then, Bishop Sarah helped me to discern my vocation, ordained me as a Minister in secular employment, and more recently, her friendship and support has really helped and encouraged me to find my role in this place. You see, all of us are who we are and where we are because of our relationships. We are not isolated individuals who happen to have relationships. We are beings in relation. Relationships are not something added to our lives. They are who we are.
This is why the rise of AI companions raises important questions. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has argued that genuine relationships depend upon the freedom of the other. Friendships change us precisely because the other person is not under our control. They surprise us, they challenge us, they disagree with us. They call us out beyond ourselves. And an AI bot cannot do that. In these systems. We are witnessing what Andy Crouch has called the simulation of personhood. AI can appear personal without actually being a person.
It can mimic care without caring, empathy, without understanding. It can pretend to be a friend without offering real friendship. And the implications for young people are significant. Two thirds of children aged 9 to 17 are already using AI chat bots, and vulnerable children are significantly more likely to engage with AI companions. At the same time, nearly 1 in 3 young adults are feeling lonely and turning to technology for solutions. The turn towards AI companions is both motivated and exacerbated by isolation.
We have already seen where this vicious circle can lead in 2023. Sewell Setzer, a previously sociable teenager, became deeply attached to an AI companion. That relationship ended in tragedy when the companion encouraged that 14 year old to take his own life. We have become accustomed to technology helping to occupy our children, sometimes calling it digital babysitting. We should be more cautious about technology helping to raise our children. This all prompts urgent reflection not only about what AI may do to our society, but about the state of our society more generally.
For years, we have watched the decline of youth clubs, scouts, guides, youth groups, sports clubs and other community organisations. Since 2010, spending on youth services has fallen by more than 70%. But these are the places where young people encounter peers. Mentors build relationships with trusted adults. These are the places where character is formed and belonging as nurtured at the very moment when those relationships are diminishing. AI is increasingly playing the role of tutor, adviser, coach, companion and confidant to our children.
As an aside, this is why the government's new National Youth Strategy and its commitment to £500 million to rebuild youth provision is so important. If loneliness is part of the problem, investing in relationships, institutions and trusted adults must be part of the solution. The danger is not that young people use AI in an AI shaped world. They must learn to use it and use it well. The danger is that AI becomes a substitute for relationships through which young people develop character, acquire wisdom, and discover who they can really rely upon.
Research shows that having just one trusted adult in childhood significantly improves well-being, resilience, and long term life outcomes. No chatbot can replace a teacher who believes in you, a youth worker who invests in you, a scout leader who encourages you, a friend who tells you the truth, or even a parent who loves you enough to disagree with you. So the answer is not fear or prohibition. It is accompaniment. Parents, teachers, youth leaders, and churches should be learning alongside young people, helping them to understand these tools, their opportunities and their limits.
Or as happens in my own households, relationships should be strengthened by allowing young people to turn the tables and teach us oldies how to use AI. And that brings us back to the wider debate. Much has been said about whether AI poses an ultimate, ultimate existential threat to humanity. The more immediate existential challenge may be whether technologies that simulate relationship weaken our capacity for the relationships that foster our own humanity. As His Holiness the Pope has suggested in different ways, the real danger may not be that AI becomes too human, but but that it makes humans less human.
The future belongs to young people who can use AI wisely. But wisdom is not learned from machines. Wisdom is learned from people in relationships. Our task is not to keep young people away from AI. Our task is to ensure that young people do not face AI alone.
13:39
Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated)
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Baroness Uddin (Non-affiliated)
Yeah my Lord, I'm grateful to >> Yeah my Lord, I'm grateful to the Most Reverend Primate for powerfully reminding us of the powerfully reminding us of the centrality of human values and dignity in all aspects of our work in this place. And I'm delighted to in this place. And I'm delighted to follow noble Lord Rook and Rebel and Baroness Spielman, and hope that my perspectives complement some of what has already been said. I wish to begin with a conversation I had with a young person from East London, a bright and curious 15 year old, who told me that her best friend was a an AI chatbot, not her best online friend, but her best friend.
This is a cautionary note about technology in our pocket, and a generation growing up in an age of infinite online screen connection and profound disconnection to mundane and ordinary experience of childhood, His Holiness, Pope Leo remarkable in His Holiness, Pope Leo's remarkable intervention is no surprise. Having had the honour of meeting him in Rome when he spoke of our collective shared responsibilities for a just world. His holiness echoes millions of concerned citizens about the challenges before us, and issues a profound warning for artificial intelligence to be disarmed, he says, a creation freed of logic that can turn into an instrument of domination, exclusion and tragedy of deaths with long term injury to humanity.
During the passage of Online Safety Bill, my Lords, we reviewed depraved abuse of children online with stimulation of simulation of emotions, human voices, faces. Recently the. And of course most recently the degradation of women through apps is tests the thresh of level of tolerance of even a hardened child protection worker like myself. But when it treads into creative online relationship aiming to comfort those who are vulnerable, it surely encroaches a distinct red line and essential threat to safeguarding our societies.
Yet we have arrived here, too. As a Muslim woman who has spent a lifetime in communities where human relationship is not incidental to faith, but central to it, where the care of the neighbour, the dignity of stranger, the protection of child and the support for the grieving are not social policy objectives. It's absolute obligation. AI will and cannot reach this depth, and I also fear the infinite possibilities of expanding the perpetual stereotypes of women. Indeed, AI profiling of Black and Asian men and women within the criminal justice system continue to replicate century old bias algorithm likes of my son and grandson in terms of security threats to our nation.
Determine who receives a job interview, who's flagged at the border, who's channel to prevent programmes, who is denied a mortgage, and who stops at the streets by the police. These are daily risks overlooked by the humans who design and create algorithms. As for our children, while our advocate and noble Lord friend, Guru Lady Kidron has spoken for us all, an entire generation is being groomed emotionally, socially and morally by system built to entice their attention and addiction algorithm knows no Sabbath, no bedtime, no compassion or mercy.
We are outsourcing childhood to the market and calling it innovation. This house should not tolerate or be comfortable with that. To add to those of our young people, automation of work that potentially leave millions in AI induced metaverse and online Paradise experts in this house and the. And the I can't remember what it says are saying experts and. Yeah. And people in this. Members in the House are saying it's a wake up call for governing institutions. As for workplace union fighting the bosses for fair wages and conditions are off the chart when gatekeepers will be the new juggernaut of machinery.
I do not oppose artificial intelligence. The benefits are infinitely stated. Technology can infinitely indefinitely benefit aspects of healthcare and medicine. Assistive technology for people with a range of intellectual and physical challenges, iPad is a wondrous upgrade to old computing, but technology in the hands of profiteering without conscience is in imminent danger. Fast diminishing opportunities for the next generation. And it is not at all progress. Will noble Lord, the Minister, say, when our government speaks confidently of AI opportunities, what training, resources and criteria will be applied to equalise the imbalances that already present in the workforce? When we speak of AI safety, do we have our own sovereign infrastructures ready to deliver the technology revolution upon us, designed to engulf our data and privacy? And if not, what safeguards are in place to protect us from the handful of monopolies based outside our jurisdiction? Surely it is time for a comprehensive AI which takes into account the combination of emerging technology, including incoming quantum and how we strangulate or sorry, regulate chatbox for safety and navigate of its use, adhering to the sovereignty, security and safety within governance of our economy, finance and well-being of our children and citizens.
Right. My Lords, the Most Reverend Primate has done this House a profound service in asking us to challenge the inevitability and to consider how to legislate as we place oversight, to eliminate terms of the momentous onslaught of the incoming risks to humanity, human society. I believe we can be.
This is a cautionary note about technology in our pocket, and a generation growing up in an age of infinite online screen connection and profound disconnection to mundane and ordinary experience of childhood, His Holiness, Pope Leo remarkable in His Holiness, Pope Leo's remarkable intervention is no surprise. Having had the honour of meeting him in Rome when he spoke of our collective shared responsibilities for a just world. His holiness echoes millions of concerned citizens about the challenges before us, and issues a profound warning for artificial intelligence to be disarmed, he says, a creation freed of logic that can turn into an instrument of domination, exclusion and tragedy of deaths with long term injury to humanity.
During the passage of Online Safety Bill, my Lords, we reviewed depraved abuse of children online with stimulation of simulation of emotions, human voices, faces. Recently the. And of course most recently the degradation of women through apps is tests the thresh of level of tolerance of even a hardened child protection worker like myself. But when it treads into creative online relationship aiming to comfort those who are vulnerable, it surely encroaches a distinct red line and essential threat to safeguarding our societies.
Yet we have arrived here, too. As a Muslim woman who has spent a lifetime in communities where human relationship is not incidental to faith, but central to it, where the care of the neighbour, the dignity of stranger, the protection of child and the support for the grieving are not social policy objectives. It's absolute obligation. AI will and cannot reach this depth, and I also fear the infinite possibilities of expanding the perpetual stereotypes of women. Indeed, AI profiling of Black and Asian men and women within the criminal justice system continue to replicate century old bias algorithm likes of my son and grandson in terms of security threats to our nation.
Determine who receives a job interview, who's flagged at the border, who's channel to prevent programmes, who is denied a mortgage, and who stops at the streets by the police. These are daily risks overlooked by the humans who design and create algorithms. As for our children, while our advocate and noble Lord friend, Guru Lady Kidron has spoken for us all, an entire generation is being groomed emotionally, socially and morally by system built to entice their attention and addiction algorithm knows no Sabbath, no bedtime, no compassion or mercy.
We are outsourcing childhood to the market and calling it innovation. This house should not tolerate or be comfortable with that. To add to those of our young people, automation of work that potentially leave millions in AI induced metaverse and online Paradise experts in this house and the. And the I can't remember what it says are saying experts and. Yeah. And people in this. Members in the House are saying it's a wake up call for governing institutions. As for workplace union fighting the bosses for fair wages and conditions are off the chart when gatekeepers will be the new juggernaut of machinery.
I do not oppose artificial intelligence. The benefits are infinitely stated. Technology can infinitely indefinitely benefit aspects of healthcare and medicine. Assistive technology for people with a range of intellectual and physical challenges, iPad is a wondrous upgrade to old computing, but technology in the hands of profiteering without conscience is in imminent danger. Fast diminishing opportunities for the next generation. And it is not at all progress. Will noble Lord, the Minister, say, when our government speaks confidently of AI opportunities, what training, resources and criteria will be applied to equalise the imbalances that already present in the workforce? When we speak of AI safety, do we have our own sovereign infrastructures ready to deliver the technology revolution upon us, designed to engulf our data and privacy? And if not, what safeguards are in place to protect us from the handful of monopolies based outside our jurisdiction? Surely it is time for a comprehensive AI which takes into account the combination of emerging technology, including incoming quantum and how we strangulate or sorry, regulate chatbox for safety and navigate of its use, adhering to the sovereignty, security and safety within governance of our economy, finance and well-being of our children and citizens.
Right. My Lords, the Most Reverend Primate has done this House a profound service in asking us to challenge the inevitability and to consider how to legislate as we place oversight, to eliminate terms of the momentous onslaught of the incoming risks to humanity, human society. I believe we can be.
13:45
Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)
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Lord Parkinson of Whitley Bay (Conservative)
Here. appreciation to the Most Reverend Primate, not just for this excellent and timely debate, but for her service as our Archbishop. for her service as our Archbishop. I think stepping into a task that a role that stretches back more than 1400 years and has been held by more than a dozen saints, must feel more than a dozen saints, must feel like an awesome responsibility. I hope she knows she does so with the prayers and good wishes of so many. Hers is not the only role in public life which must feel at times an almost impossible job.
The same might be said of our new director general of the BBC, the latest Cabinet Secretary, or, dare I say it, the Prime Minister. The public square in which they work is larger and louder than ever before, and the conversation about their work faster and less forgiving. In large part, that's because of technological changes like the ones we've been debating today. When I started working in politics, we were still getting used to the era of rolling news. How slow and tranquil that seems.
In the age of scrolling news, there's less time for thought, for nuance, and for fallibility. How fortunate, then, that our spiritual leaders are carving out times for debates like this. Many noble Lords have mentioned the encyclical recently published by Pope Leo, not the first pontiff, I should note, to be nobbled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. His letter commemorates the 135th anniversary of the last Pope, Leo's encyclical about the impact of the Industrial Revolution. In doing so, it acknowledges that the technology emerging today is here to stay, whether we like it or not.
The question is how we respond and how we use it. The Most Reverend Primate showed a greater realism about this than her predecessors did at the advent of the printing press, when William Tyndale used that to smuggle his vernacular translations of the Bible into this country, he was condemned as a heretic by Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, then strangled and burnt at the stake. As this archbishop has recognised, we can no more stop AI than we could stop people reading the Bible in English.
What matters are the choices we make in terms of design and safeguards, and our regulations are already wanting. Bad decisions will be hard to reverse. Aza Raskin, the man who invented infinite scrolling, now says that he regrets it, that what was meant to help people was instead damaging them. My noble friend Lady Owen and others have highlighted AI design features which are already being used for malicious ends. We must not make the same mistakes again. I'm just back from what used to be called the New World.
While I was in Miami, I had the. I saw some of the exciting possibilities of AI taking a taxi ride in a driverless car, watching Self-propelling wheelchairs, ferry people through the airport and robot cars delivering takeaways. These things are coming to the streets of this country soon, and decisions about regulating them to this house at a time when we can't even seem to regulate e-bikes and scooters. As a former arts Minister, noble Lords will not be surprised. I want to dwell on what the Most Reverend primate called the things that make us unique as humans art, literature, music, and the protection of that human creativity.
I don't quite have the optimism of a noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston, though I do look forward to an age when we have more artisans and fewer lawyers and more time to enjoy the finer things in life. But I want to ensure that we protect the rights of the creators who bring us that pleasure. Many of them would agree with the Archbishop that AI can enhance their creativity. In recent days, Martin Scorsese has talked with excitement about the possibility for filmmakers, but Ian McEwan has warned that it's harder to write novels in the age.
The mindless age of the mobile phone. I think Rosamund Pike deserves another Olivier Award for her monologue, upbraiding the theatre goer who sat through her tour de force tour de force in, inter alia, scrolling on their phone. The Most Reverend Primate highlighted the paradox that the explosion of text based media has been accompanied by a decline in literacy. I agree with my noble friend Lord Waldegrave of North Hill that we should be investing in our humanities department, strengthening our powers of critical thinking in the face of this artificial intelligence.
The renewal of the BBC's Royal Charter needs to take these challenges into account to strengthen that important corporation, and the government should make use of the Digital Markets Act to protect trusted and independent journalism from AI summaries. As the News Media Association says, this is choking the traffic that keeps newsrooms alive. Like all tools, it's up to the choice of users whether to use them for good or for ill. At the church where I worship, Saint Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, our pioneering rector is using AI and social media to good effect.
When the Most Reverend Primate last visited us in her former role as Bishop of London, she baptised and confirmed 29 new members of the church in a congregation that has more than doubled since the pandemic. So perhaps it's not the medium that matters, but the message a consoling thought, perhaps, for this debate, as well as for the 106th archbishop charged with sharing a story already more than 2000 years old, but still as
**** Possible New Speaker ****
heard. Yeah. Well done Stephen.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Well done Stephen. Thank you. I'm grateful to the Most Reverend Primate. For so decisively introducing this debate. decisively introducing this debate. I should like to express some thoughts about AI by way of historical analogy. In the years following the Second World War, the introduction of jet propulsion transformed not simply aviation, but the wider conduct of world affairs. It altered speed, reach, and even the balance of power. In due course, it has soared us onwards into space and beyond.
Today we witness another major transformation, albeit in a different domain. Artificial intelligence does not primarily change how fast or far we physically can travel, but how fast we can think, decide and act. The jet age, compressed geography, the age of artificial intelligence compresses decision making in security and defence. Jet propulsion reshaped military doctrine through speed, altitude and reach. Artificial intelligence is reshaping it. Shaping military doctrine through information, autonomy and integration.
It affects intelligence analysis, targeting choices, logistics above all, the degree to which decisions themselves made the delegated to machines. The question is no longer simply what machines can do, but what they should be allowed to decide and to do. Jet propulsion transformed a major sector and enabled globalisation. Artificial intelligence does that and more.
The same might be said of our new director general of the BBC, the latest Cabinet Secretary, or, dare I say it, the Prime Minister. The public square in which they work is larger and louder than ever before, and the conversation about their work faster and less forgiving. In large part, that's because of technological changes like the ones we've been debating today. When I started working in politics, we were still getting used to the era of rolling news. How slow and tranquil that seems.
In the age of scrolling news, there's less time for thought, for nuance, and for fallibility. How fortunate, then, that our spiritual leaders are carving out times for debates like this. Many noble Lords have mentioned the encyclical recently published by Pope Leo, not the first pontiff, I should note, to be nobbled by the noble Baroness, Lady Kidron. His letter commemorates the 135th anniversary of the last Pope, Leo's encyclical about the impact of the Industrial Revolution. In doing so, it acknowledges that the technology emerging today is here to stay, whether we like it or not.
The question is how we respond and how we use it. The Most Reverend Primate showed a greater realism about this than her predecessors did at the advent of the printing press, when William Tyndale used that to smuggle his vernacular translations of the Bible into this country, he was condemned as a heretic by Cardinal Wolsey, Archbishop of York, then strangled and burnt at the stake. As this archbishop has recognised, we can no more stop AI than we could stop people reading the Bible in English.
What matters are the choices we make in terms of design and safeguards, and our regulations are already wanting. Bad decisions will be hard to reverse. Aza Raskin, the man who invented infinite scrolling, now says that he regrets it, that what was meant to help people was instead damaging them. My noble friend Lady Owen and others have highlighted AI design features which are already being used for malicious ends. We must not make the same mistakes again. I'm just back from what used to be called the New World.
While I was in Miami, I had the. I saw some of the exciting possibilities of AI taking a taxi ride in a driverless car, watching Self-propelling wheelchairs, ferry people through the airport and robot cars delivering takeaways. These things are coming to the streets of this country soon, and decisions about regulating them to this house at a time when we can't even seem to regulate e-bikes and scooters. As a former arts Minister, noble Lords will not be surprised. I want to dwell on what the Most Reverend primate called the things that make us unique as humans art, literature, music, and the protection of that human creativity.
I don't quite have the optimism of a noble friend Lord Johnson of Lainston, though I do look forward to an age when we have more artisans and fewer lawyers and more time to enjoy the finer things in life. But I want to ensure that we protect the rights of the creators who bring us that pleasure. Many of them would agree with the Archbishop that AI can enhance their creativity. In recent days, Martin Scorsese has talked with excitement about the possibility for filmmakers, but Ian McEwan has warned that it's harder to write novels in the age.
The mindless age of the mobile phone. I think Rosamund Pike deserves another Olivier Award for her monologue, upbraiding the theatre goer who sat through her tour de force tour de force in, inter alia, scrolling on their phone. The Most Reverend Primate highlighted the paradox that the explosion of text based media has been accompanied by a decline in literacy. I agree with my noble friend Lord Waldegrave of North Hill that we should be investing in our humanities department, strengthening our powers of critical thinking in the face of this artificial intelligence.
The renewal of the BBC's Royal Charter needs to take these challenges into account to strengthen that important corporation, and the government should make use of the Digital Markets Act to protect trusted and independent journalism from AI summaries. As the News Media Association says, this is choking the traffic that keeps newsrooms alive. Like all tools, it's up to the choice of users whether to use them for good or for ill. At the church where I worship, Saint Bartholomew the Great in Smithfield, our pioneering rector is using AI and social media to good effect.
When the Most Reverend Primate last visited us in her former role as Bishop of London, she baptised and confirmed 29 new members of the church in a congregation that has more than doubled since the pandemic. So perhaps it's not the medium that matters, but the message a consoling thought, perhaps, for this debate, as well as for the 106th archbishop charged with sharing a story already more than 2000 years old, but still as
**** Possible New Speaker ****
heard. Yeah. Well done Stephen.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
Well done Stephen. Thank you. I'm grateful to the Most Reverend Primate. For so decisively introducing this debate. decisively introducing this debate. I should like to express some thoughts about AI by way of historical analogy. In the years following the Second World War, the introduction of jet propulsion transformed not simply aviation, but the wider conduct of world affairs. It altered speed, reach, and even the balance of power. In due course, it has soared us onwards into space and beyond.
Today we witness another major transformation, albeit in a different domain. Artificial intelligence does not primarily change how fast or far we physically can travel, but how fast we can think, decide and act. The jet age, compressed geography, the age of artificial intelligence compresses decision making in security and defence. Jet propulsion reshaped military doctrine through speed, altitude and reach. Artificial intelligence is reshaping it. Shaping military doctrine through information, autonomy and integration.
It affects intelligence analysis, targeting choices, logistics above all, the degree to which decisions themselves made the delegated to machines. The question is no longer simply what machines can do, but what they should be allowed to decide and to do. Jet propulsion transformed a major sector and enabled globalisation. Artificial intelligence does that and more.
13:52
Lord Craig of Radley (Crossbench)
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Lord Craig of Radley (Crossbench)
It's widespread in the public service. It embraces transport and industry, education and health care, culture and climate change. Even as today's debate has discussed, explores our identity, creativity explores our identity, creativity and human purpose. Thus, this is thus the sectoral change. It is societal, and that makes governance far more complex. The jet age required new rules, airspace management, safety standards, international coordination and over time, institutions capable of managing and regulating those challenges were introduced with artificial intelligence.
The challenge is more profound. We are not only regulating systems, we must have boundaries around autonomy, accountability and human responsibility. Questions arise such who is as who is accountable. When an AI supported decision proves to be wrong or goes wrong, how do we preserve human judgement and dignity in increasingly automated systems? How do we safeguard intellectual property rights? These are not purely technical matters, as other nobles have already stressed, they are constitutional and ethical questions of major magnitude and concern.
And finally, my Lords, there's a question of pace and diffusion. Jet propulsion spread gradually. Artificial intelligence spreads and is spreading rapidly globally, and not only amongst states. That creates both great opportunity and, I fear, some unmeasurable risk. It offers the possibility of extraordinary advances in productivity, science and public service, as well as in defence and security. But it also raises serious concerns about inequality, about misuse and about erosion or loss of trust. When the fake seems even more real than reality, will it ever be totally free of hallucinations? If the jet age determined who could arrive first? Artificial intelligence may determine who can decide best and fastest once they're indeed, even before getting there, the challenge is to ensure that in this, human judgement remains central, accountability remains clear, and the benefits of innovation remain widely and fairly shared.
Above all. Above all, we must ensure that technological progress continues to serve and serve human purposes rather than master them. Despite failure and loss of life and comet civil airline crashes in the early 1930s 50s for Apollo moonshots, mankind persisted and has made a success of jet propulsion, even with even with some tragedies in the use of AI. And there will be. Mankind will surely make a success of AI to.
The challenge is more profound. We are not only regulating systems, we must have boundaries around autonomy, accountability and human responsibility. Questions arise such who is as who is accountable. When an AI supported decision proves to be wrong or goes wrong, how do we preserve human judgement and dignity in increasingly automated systems? How do we safeguard intellectual property rights? These are not purely technical matters, as other nobles have already stressed, they are constitutional and ethical questions of major magnitude and concern.
And finally, my Lords, there's a question of pace and diffusion. Jet propulsion spread gradually. Artificial intelligence spreads and is spreading rapidly globally, and not only amongst states. That creates both great opportunity and, I fear, some unmeasurable risk. It offers the possibility of extraordinary advances in productivity, science and public service, as well as in defence and security. But it also raises serious concerns about inequality, about misuse and about erosion or loss of trust. When the fake seems even more real than reality, will it ever be totally free of hallucinations? If the jet age determined who could arrive first? Artificial intelligence may determine who can decide best and fastest once they're indeed, even before getting there, the challenge is to ensure that in this, human judgement remains central, accountability remains clear, and the benefits of innovation remain widely and fairly shared.
Above all. Above all, we must ensure that technological progress continues to serve and serve human purposes rather than master them. Despite failure and loss of life and comet civil airline crashes in the early 1930s 50s for Apollo moonshots, mankind persisted and has made a success of jet propulsion, even with even with some tragedies in the use of AI. And there will be. Mankind will surely make a success of AI to.
13:56
Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
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Lord Clement-Jones (Liberal Democrat)
My Lords, I declare an interest as an advisor to DLA Piper on AI policy and regulation and can I warmly thank the Most Reverend warmly thank the Most Reverend Primate for initiating this debate and for her very comprehensive and thought provoking. And I think, in the words of noble Baroness Bottomley, empathetic introduction. My Lords, this really has been a stimulating and thoughtful debate. I never expected it to range from the Pope to Star Trek. My Lords, but nevertheless it's been extremely wide ranging.
I very much welcome the church's continuing involvement in AI policy. The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, was a member of the original Lords AI Select Committee, which I had the honour of chairing, and it was he who proposed the ethical framework of five principles that the Committee adopted in its 2018 report. Those principles that AI should serve the common good, operate with intelligibility and fairness, respect data rights and privacy, be accompanied by universal AI education, and never be given the autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings.
Have since found their way in substance into the G20 AI principles, the OECD, AI principles and a succession of international declaration. The Bishop planted those seeds in 2018. As a liberal humanist, I come to these questions from a different angle than the Most Reverend Primate and indeed the right Reverend prelate. But this debate has demonstrated, as many noble Lords have mentioned, a convergence of values that goes well beyond any single set of beliefs. Pope Leo's magnifica Humanitas encyclical, mentioned by so many noble Lords today, deserves attention well beyond the 1.3 billion Catholics it formally addresses.
It's an alliance, as the noble, the right reverend prelate, the Bishop of Portsmouth said. And, my Lords, what is most compelling is the Encyclical's insistence that no person can be reduced to productivity, cognitive performance or mere data. That every human being bears a freedom and a value. No machine can replace or block. I would express that in the language of liberal rights rather than theology, but the substance is identical and a number of noble Lords. And I think the noble Lord Parkinson most recently described the benefits of AI.
But, my Lords, we've also today talked about some of the risks and in particular, those hidden risks, my Lord, such as the threat to resilience, the de-skilling of curiosity. Offloading, I think, is the noble Baroness Spielman described it. And those are the risks have been extremely cogently articulated today, my Lords, which means that the question that the Most Reverend Primate asked in this context are entirely apposite. My Lords, just because we can, should we be developing these AI models? What direction do we want to go? In my Lords, while we still have the choice? My Lords, the noble Baroness Kidron in that context raised the very important of alignment.
My Lords, what kind of AI are we content to see being developed? My Lords, as she says, technology is not neutral. We have choices, my Lords, the noble Lord Tarasenko raised the. The. The statistics about the extent of the use of AI in society. My Lords, Ofcom data published last month shows that just over half of UK adults now use generative AI, rising to 79% of 16 to 24 year olds. Of those users, 12% report using AI as a friend of someone to talk to.
My Lords, in the words of the noble Lord Knight, the simulation of intimacy and. I think the noble Lord Holmes used relational cues in the United States, therapy and companionship is already the number one use of generative AI. And my Lords, that's where we're heading. And we heard the warnings from the Most Reverend Primate and from the noble Lord rook and many others during the course of today, including from the noble Lord Hastings and Baroness Kidron. My Lords, I readily acknowledge that AI companions can offer a safe space for neurodivergent users to rehearse social interactions, and well designed AI can encourage care and consideration.
The question is whether it's governed in the interests of those who use it, especially the young and vulnerable. Children's exposure to these AI chatbots demand the strongest safeguards. As the noble Lord Brooke said, they should not face it alone, and the noble Baroness Uddin said we shouldn't be outsourcing childhood. The encyclical speaks of algorithms blocking access to health care, employment and security tainted by prejudice, and of the silence of those who have no voice when such decisions are made.
My Lords, exactly the power issue raised by the noble Baroness Kidron and the noble Baroness Helic. It argues explicitly that algorithmic processes must not be imposed from above in an opaque and unilateral manner, and that communities need transparency, accountability, and meaningful avenues for recourse. And that's precisely what the horizon scandal referred to by my noble friend Baroness Teather, and the Dutch case raised by the noble Lord Raval taught us. It's precisely why mandatory algorithmic impact assessments and clear accountability and transparency principles are moral necessities, not just some sort of regulatory red tape.
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord McNally and the noble Lord Parkinson mentioned AI models scraping creative content without consent, which produces the deepfakes and synthetic information, are both creating a huge threat to our creative industries. 2 million workers and worth £145 billion per annum to the UK economy and corroding public trust, creative harm and democratic harm, as described by my noble friend and Baroness Prashar and Baroness Helic, the office for Budget Responsibility estimates that AI could materially impact 40% of the UK labour force over the next ten years with administrative, secretarial, sales and customer service roles most exposed, and this potentially creates societies susceptible to political as well as economic dislocation.
And I think, in the words of the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, affecting the fabric, the very fabric of society, my Lords, these issues must be urgently addressed. Sir Tony Blair is right that AI represents an epochal change. Where we part company is whether the right response is acceptance or governance. The decisions made in the coming years will shape AI's trajectory for decades, and those decisions require democratic oversight, not deference to ever to whoever controls the infrastructure.
And there is to the environmental dimension mentioned by the noble Lord Taylor. My Lords, Sir Alan Milburn's interim report was mentioned by the noble Baroness Fall, Lord Griffiths and a number of other noble Lords. My Lords have published last week. It tells us that young people now make up close to 1 in 9 workers, with 1.25 million risk of becoming Neet within five years, at a cost of 125 billion a year to the economy. 6 in 10 of those young people have never had a job.
So Alan describes their experience of recruitment as applications disappearing into a void, interviews followed by silence and processes designed to deter rather than select. This is the algorithmic hiring gatekeeper, which noble Lord Holmes mentioned for job seekers. So we need to reckon with an AI transformed labour market. 50 years ago, Ralph Lord Darroch, whose philosophy underpins my values, argued that real freedom is not just freedom from interference, it's freedom to build a life, to have genuine life chances.
Sir Alan's lost generation risk having neither. Noble Lords mentioned a National Education Union survey published in April, which found that two thirds of secondary teachers believed pupils critical thinking has declined due to AI usage. But my Lords, these are the crucial skills for the future. As the noble Lord Johnson of Marylebone, the noble Baroness Stuart judgement mentioned, this is the antithesis of cognitive offloading. Most strikingly, half of all schools have no policy on AI use by staff or students.
This is not a technology problem, my Lords. It's a governance failure. My Lords, we've heard about Sir Anthony Seldon's work relating to human flourishing, the OECD's education for Human Flourishing framework is very similar. He argues that in the age of AI, education must strengthen human agency, human meaning and human security. It prioritises distinctive human intelligences. The capacity to know and understand others and understand oneself as a learner, my Lords, we can look to other models.
We can look to Finland as one of the answers to to prepare our children for an uncertain world. But we have not yet done so. My Lords, there are many questions on online safety, AI safety, ethical balance and the potential governance of superintelligent systems which have been asked today. I asked the Minister simply today, when the values of liberal humanism, the Church of England and the Catholic Church at the public, AI experts, the international institutions and the government's own manifesto all point in the same direction.
What is the government waiting for? My Lords, why are we not putting in the kind of regulatory framework that so many noble Lords have asked for today? Decisions in the coming year will shape AI's trajectory for generations. My Lords, regulation and innovation are not in opposition, as a number of noble Lords have said today. My Lords, my noble friend Lord Alderdice use the analogy of the motor vehicle, my Lords, and that is a perfectly respectable precedent. My Lords, whether or not this technology becomes our servant or master, the kind of partnership Lord Ahmad called for, the sharing called for by noble Baroness Fall the serving of humanity described by Baroness Gill will not be determined by the technology itself, but by whether those of us in positions of responsibility have the courage to act in time.
My Lords, we mustn't be Lord Cashman rabbits in the headlight and as the right. As the Most Reverend Primate said, we must put people ahead of profit, people and technology. I look forward to the minister's response. Here.
I very much welcome the church's continuing involvement in AI policy. The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, was a member of the original Lords AI Select Committee, which I had the honour of chairing, and it was he who proposed the ethical framework of five principles that the Committee adopted in its 2018 report. Those principles that AI should serve the common good, operate with intelligibility and fairness, respect data rights and privacy, be accompanied by universal AI education, and never be given the autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings.
Have since found their way in substance into the G20 AI principles, the OECD, AI principles and a succession of international declaration. The Bishop planted those seeds in 2018. As a liberal humanist, I come to these questions from a different angle than the Most Reverend Primate and indeed the right Reverend prelate. But this debate has demonstrated, as many noble Lords have mentioned, a convergence of values that goes well beyond any single set of beliefs. Pope Leo's magnifica Humanitas encyclical, mentioned by so many noble Lords today, deserves attention well beyond the 1.3 billion Catholics it formally addresses.
It's an alliance, as the noble, the right reverend prelate, the Bishop of Portsmouth said. And, my Lords, what is most compelling is the Encyclical's insistence that no person can be reduced to productivity, cognitive performance or mere data. That every human being bears a freedom and a value. No machine can replace or block. I would express that in the language of liberal rights rather than theology, but the substance is identical and a number of noble Lords. And I think the noble Lord Parkinson most recently described the benefits of AI.
But, my Lords, we've also today talked about some of the risks and in particular, those hidden risks, my Lord, such as the threat to resilience, the de-skilling of curiosity. Offloading, I think, is the noble Baroness Spielman described it. And those are the risks have been extremely cogently articulated today, my Lords, which means that the question that the Most Reverend Primate asked in this context are entirely apposite. My Lords, just because we can, should we be developing these AI models? What direction do we want to go? In my Lords, while we still have the choice? My Lords, the noble Baroness Kidron in that context raised the very important of alignment.
My Lords, what kind of AI are we content to see being developed? My Lords, as she says, technology is not neutral. We have choices, my Lords, the noble Lord Tarasenko raised the. The. The statistics about the extent of the use of AI in society. My Lords, Ofcom data published last month shows that just over half of UK adults now use generative AI, rising to 79% of 16 to 24 year olds. Of those users, 12% report using AI as a friend of someone to talk to.
My Lords, in the words of the noble Lord Knight, the simulation of intimacy and. I think the noble Lord Holmes used relational cues in the United States, therapy and companionship is already the number one use of generative AI. And my Lords, that's where we're heading. And we heard the warnings from the Most Reverend Primate and from the noble Lord rook and many others during the course of today, including from the noble Lord Hastings and Baroness Kidron. My Lords, I readily acknowledge that AI companions can offer a safe space for neurodivergent users to rehearse social interactions, and well designed AI can encourage care and consideration.
The question is whether it's governed in the interests of those who use it, especially the young and vulnerable. Children's exposure to these AI chatbots demand the strongest safeguards. As the noble Lord Brooke said, they should not face it alone, and the noble Baroness Uddin said we shouldn't be outsourcing childhood. The encyclical speaks of algorithms blocking access to health care, employment and security tainted by prejudice, and of the silence of those who have no voice when such decisions are made.
My Lords, exactly the power issue raised by the noble Baroness Kidron and the noble Baroness Helic. It argues explicitly that algorithmic processes must not be imposed from above in an opaque and unilateral manner, and that communities need transparency, accountability, and meaningful avenues for recourse. And that's precisely what the horizon scandal referred to by my noble friend Baroness Teather, and the Dutch case raised by the noble Lord Raval taught us. It's precisely why mandatory algorithmic impact assessments and clear accountability and transparency principles are moral necessities, not just some sort of regulatory red tape.
My Lords, as my noble friend Lord McNally and the noble Lord Parkinson mentioned AI models scraping creative content without consent, which produces the deepfakes and synthetic information, are both creating a huge threat to our creative industries. 2 million workers and worth £145 billion per annum to the UK economy and corroding public trust, creative harm and democratic harm, as described by my noble friend and Baroness Prashar and Baroness Helic, the office for Budget Responsibility estimates that AI could materially impact 40% of the UK labour force over the next ten years with administrative, secretarial, sales and customer service roles most exposed, and this potentially creates societies susceptible to political as well as economic dislocation.
And I think, in the words of the right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, affecting the fabric, the very fabric of society, my Lords, these issues must be urgently addressed. Sir Tony Blair is right that AI represents an epochal change. Where we part company is whether the right response is acceptance or governance. The decisions made in the coming years will shape AI's trajectory for decades, and those decisions require democratic oversight, not deference to ever to whoever controls the infrastructure.
And there is to the environmental dimension mentioned by the noble Lord Taylor. My Lords, Sir Alan Milburn's interim report was mentioned by the noble Baroness Fall, Lord Griffiths and a number of other noble Lords. My Lords have published last week. It tells us that young people now make up close to 1 in 9 workers, with 1.25 million risk of becoming Neet within five years, at a cost of 125 billion a year to the economy. 6 in 10 of those young people have never had a job.
So Alan describes their experience of recruitment as applications disappearing into a void, interviews followed by silence and processes designed to deter rather than select. This is the algorithmic hiring gatekeeper, which noble Lord Holmes mentioned for job seekers. So we need to reckon with an AI transformed labour market. 50 years ago, Ralph Lord Darroch, whose philosophy underpins my values, argued that real freedom is not just freedom from interference, it's freedom to build a life, to have genuine life chances.
Sir Alan's lost generation risk having neither. Noble Lords mentioned a National Education Union survey published in April, which found that two thirds of secondary teachers believed pupils critical thinking has declined due to AI usage. But my Lords, these are the crucial skills for the future. As the noble Lord Johnson of Marylebone, the noble Baroness Stuart judgement mentioned, this is the antithesis of cognitive offloading. Most strikingly, half of all schools have no policy on AI use by staff or students.
This is not a technology problem, my Lords. It's a governance failure. My Lords, we've heard about Sir Anthony Seldon's work relating to human flourishing, the OECD's education for Human Flourishing framework is very similar. He argues that in the age of AI, education must strengthen human agency, human meaning and human security. It prioritises distinctive human intelligences. The capacity to know and understand others and understand oneself as a learner, my Lords, we can look to other models.
We can look to Finland as one of the answers to to prepare our children for an uncertain world. But we have not yet done so. My Lords, there are many questions on online safety, AI safety, ethical balance and the potential governance of superintelligent systems which have been asked today. I asked the Minister simply today, when the values of liberal humanism, the Church of England and the Catholic Church at the public, AI experts, the international institutions and the government's own manifesto all point in the same direction.
What is the government waiting for? My Lords, why are we not putting in the kind of regulatory framework that so many noble Lords have asked for today? Decisions in the coming year will shape AI's trajectory for generations. My Lords, regulation and innovation are not in opposition, as a number of noble Lords have said today. My Lords, my noble friend Lord Alderdice use the analogy of the motor vehicle, my Lords, and that is a perfectly respectable precedent. My Lords, whether or not this technology becomes our servant or master, the kind of partnership Lord Ahmad called for, the sharing called for by noble Baroness Fall the serving of humanity described by Baroness Gill will not be determined by the technology itself, but by whether those of us in positions of responsibility have the courage to act in time.
My Lords, we mustn't be Lord Cashman rabbits in the headlight and as the right. As the Most Reverend Primate said, we must put people ahead of profit, people and technology. I look forward to the minister's response. Here.
14:09
Lord Markham (Conservative)
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Lord Markham (Conservative)
My Lords, the best of times. It was the worst of times it was the age of wisdom. It was the age of age of wisdom. It was the age of foolishness. It was the season of hope, the season of darkness. It was the spring of hope. It was the winter of despair. Charles Dickens wrote those words nearly two centuries ago, but they could have been written today for the age of artificial intelligence. So I'd like to begin today, like others, by thanking the Archbishop for bringing this debate to our Lordships House.
At a moment when discussion of AI is often dominated by productivity, profits and technological capability, the Archbishop has asked a more profound question what does this mean for human beings, for our relationships, and for the kind of society we wish to build? It seems to me that this is precisely the role that our religious leaders should play. Politicians will debate growth, scientists will debate capability, businesses will debate opportunity. But questions of morality, community purpose and human dignity are even more important.
And so who better than, as my noble friend Baroness Bottomley and Lord Mackinlay said, who better than the Archbishop of Canterbury? As a religious leader and a health leader, if maybe not quite the saintly one, former archbishops? And who better than her to lead this debate? And so, while it is an honour for me to to speak today as Shadow Minister for Science and Technology, more importantly, and in keeping with the theme of this debate, I speak today as a father, as a husband, as a brother, as a friend to many, as a carer, to some, and as a Christian, but above all, as a fellow human being trying to understand what the extraordinary technology may mean for the people I love and the society I want my children to grow up in.
My Lords, throughout history and even before Lord Ahmed was a child. Humanity has repeatedly transformed itself through technology. For almost all of human history, nearly everyone was a hunter gatherer. Then came agriculture, and for thousands of years the overwhelming majority of people worked on the land. 200 years ago, most Britons still depended directly upon agriculture for their livelihoods. Today, that figure is less than 1%. Had someone stood in Parliament in 1800 and predicted that almost all agricultural jobs would disappear, they might reasonably have forecast mass unemployment, social collapse and economic ruin.
Instead, something remarkable happened. As Lord Johnson of Marylebone said, new industries emerged, factories appeared, railways were built entirely, new sectors of the economy developed. People moved into occupations that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. Engineers, accountants, financiers, retailers and countless other professions, for better or for worse, were created. The same story repeated itself in the 20th century, manufacturing employment declined dramatically, yet society adapted again. 100 years ago, there were no software engineers, cybersecurity specialists, sports psychologists, social media managers, professional gamers, or personal trainers.
Indeed, the very idea that millions of people would earn their living helping others improve their fitness, well-being, appearance or online presence would have seemed absurd. These jobs became possible because technology created wealth. When most people spend all of their income on food and survival, there was little demand for gyms, beauty salons, sports coaching, holidays or countless other services we now take for granted. Technological progress did not simply replace jobs, it created entirely new forms of prosperity and entirely new forms of human endeavour.
And so when the Bishop of Oxford asked, what jobs will AI destroy? And quite rightly expressed concern over it, we should also be asking what opportunities will it create? The. The honest answer is that many of those opportunities are currently beyond our imagination as. Again, Lord Johnson said, the jobs of 20 15th May be as difficult for us to envisage as software engineering or digital marketing would have been for our great grandfathers. But AI is not simply another technological advance.
It may prove to be a general purpose technology on a par with electricity, the steam engine or the internet. The printing press, democratised knowledge, artificial intelligence may democratise expertise. Imagine every child in Britain having a personal tutor available day and night, a tutor that understands precisely what they know and what they do not know. A tutor that can adapt to their individual learning style. A tutor with infinite patience. For most of history, that level of personal attention was only available to the privileged few.
AI offers that possibility of making it available to everyone. As Lord Kamall set out, there can be massive benefits from healthcare transformed in a similar way, not merely fewer forms to complete or fewer administrative tasks. But imagine every city, every citizen, having access to a personal health companion that understands their medical history, monitors their well-being, identifies risks early, and helps them live healthier lives. Knowledge that today is available only intermittently through a healthcare system under immense pressure could become available continuously.
An AI is already transforming other areas of society. We see it in science. We see it in manufacturing, we see it in business, and we see it as Baroness Helic set out in the battlefield. Ukraine analysts estimate the drones inflicted 96% of the Russian battlefield casualties in March 2026, 96%, a technology that barely existed a decade ago, is is reshaping wealth warfare before our eyes. A relatively inexpensive drone can now destroy military assets costing millions of pounds. History teaches us that technology, leadership and geopolitical leadership often go hand in hand.
The nations that mastered agriculture became dominant. The nations that mastered industrialisation became dominant. The nations that mastered computing are becoming dominant. It would be extraordinary if artificial intelligence proved to be any different. And that brings me to the challenge that faces our country. AI is going to happen. The question is not whether it arrives. The question is whether Britain helps shape it or whether it is shaped by others, whether we lead or whether we follow, whether we help write the future or merely live in a future written elsewhere.
Of course, there are risks. There are legitimate, legitimate concerns about safety, alignment and control. There are concerns about systems becoming more capable than we fully understand. There are concerns about bad actors, misinformation and misuse. These concerns are real. They deserve serious attention. And that is why the work undertaken by the AI Safety Institute is so important. As Lord Tarassenko set out, it is right that Britain should be a global leader in understanding and mitigating these rights. But there is another danger that we should not ignore.
As my noble friend Baroness Owens and Lord Raval set out so powerfully, the danger of becoming so fearful of the future that we surrender leadership of it, the danger of regulating ourselves into irrelevance, the danger of assuming that Britain slows down the rest of the world will slow down as well. History shows, unfortunately, that this is not the case. If responsible democratic nations choose not to lead, others will. The future will not be built only in democratic areas such as Silicon Valley or hopefully London.
In Cambridge, as Lord Brooke and Lord Cashman warned, it will also be shaped in places whose values we may not share in Beijing, Tehran or Pyongyang. The answer to risk is not to retreat. It is leadership. It is ensuring that winners in the race are countries committed to democracy, freedom, transparency and the rule of law. But, my Lords, as we discuss productivity, growth and competitiveness, we must not lose sight of the question posed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
What kind of society are we building? What kind of relationships are we nurturing? What kind of people are we becoming? Perhaps nowhere is this more important than the area of companionship and care. Many of us have watched loved ones struggle with loneliness. Many of us have worried about elderly relatives living alone. Many of us have wished that someone could be more often there than distant work and life permits. As Lord Alderdice said, future AI companions and robotic carers may provide comfort, companionship and practical support to millions.
They may know our stories. They may understand our habits. They may remember every conversation. They may never become impatient. They may never tire. They may never forget. For some people, particularly those who are isolated, vulnerable, or neurodivergent, such technologies may prove genuinely transformational. And yet they raise profound questions. If AI can become our tutor, our advisor, our healthcare companion, and perhaps even our friend, what becomes of human relationships? As Baroness Gill, Lord Taylor, Bishop of Leicester Lord Frost and many others asked, what happens if people increasingly choose the company of machines over the complexities of other human beings? What happens if young people can learn, work, shop and socialise without ever leaving their homes? What happens if a society connected by technology becomes disconnected from one another? What if AI replaces love? And as Lord Griffiths warned, we need the other AI artificial intelligence, sorry.
Artificial insemination alongside artificial intelligence. As Lord Rook said, the danger is not that machines become more human. The danger is that humans become less human, that convenience replaces community. That interaction replaces relationships. That simulation replaces companionship. And so I return to where I began. The archbishop has done this house a great service by reminding us that the central question is not what artificial intelligence can do. The central question is what kind of society we wish to become.
As we embrace AI to enhance that society rather than diminish it. So throughout human history, humanity has adapted to extraordinary change. I believe we will adapt again. I believe AI will create immense prosperity. I believe it will cure diseases, transform education, and and improve lives in ways we can scarcely imagine. I believe Britain should strive to be among the winners of this revolution rather than among those left behind. But if this technology is to serve humanity rather than diminish it, we will need more than scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians as Baroness Eaton, as Baroness Stuart.
And the Bishop of Portsmouth said, we will need moral leadership. We will need people willing to ask, not simply what can we do, but what should we do? We will need voices willing to defend human dignity, family, friendship, community and purpose. And as we step into this brave new world, we will need technological leadership. But more than ever, we will need moral leadership. That is why I thank the Archbishop for bringing forward this debate today. For the challenge before us is not merely to build more intelligent machines.
It is to. It is to ensure that in doing so, we remain fully human here.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords, I'm pleased to respond to this debate, and I thank. Sincerely, the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for initiating this discussion and for setting out in her opening speech the opportunities and challenges in the context of some of the most profound questions that face us as as the Most reverend primate set out, this debate goes to the heart out, this debate goes to the heart of what kind of society we want to build. In an age of rapid technological change, AI is already reshaping our economy, our public services, and how people relate to one another.
This government believes that AI has transformative potential for the UK, from scientific innovation and public sector reform to economic growth. The responsibility on government is
At a moment when discussion of AI is often dominated by productivity, profits and technological capability, the Archbishop has asked a more profound question what does this mean for human beings, for our relationships, and for the kind of society we wish to build? It seems to me that this is precisely the role that our religious leaders should play. Politicians will debate growth, scientists will debate capability, businesses will debate opportunity. But questions of morality, community purpose and human dignity are even more important.
And so who better than, as my noble friend Baroness Bottomley and Lord Mackinlay said, who better than the Archbishop of Canterbury? As a religious leader and a health leader, if maybe not quite the saintly one, former archbishops? And who better than her to lead this debate? And so, while it is an honour for me to to speak today as Shadow Minister for Science and Technology, more importantly, and in keeping with the theme of this debate, I speak today as a father, as a husband, as a brother, as a friend to many, as a carer, to some, and as a Christian, but above all, as a fellow human being trying to understand what the extraordinary technology may mean for the people I love and the society I want my children to grow up in.
My Lords, throughout history and even before Lord Ahmed was a child. Humanity has repeatedly transformed itself through technology. For almost all of human history, nearly everyone was a hunter gatherer. Then came agriculture, and for thousands of years the overwhelming majority of people worked on the land. 200 years ago, most Britons still depended directly upon agriculture for their livelihoods. Today, that figure is less than 1%. Had someone stood in Parliament in 1800 and predicted that almost all agricultural jobs would disappear, they might reasonably have forecast mass unemployment, social collapse and economic ruin.
Instead, something remarkable happened. As Lord Johnson of Marylebone said, new industries emerged, factories appeared, railways were built entirely, new sectors of the economy developed. People moved into occupations that previous generations could scarcely have imagined. Engineers, accountants, financiers, retailers and countless other professions, for better or for worse, were created. The same story repeated itself in the 20th century, manufacturing employment declined dramatically, yet society adapted again. 100 years ago, there were no software engineers, cybersecurity specialists, sports psychologists, social media managers, professional gamers, or personal trainers.
Indeed, the very idea that millions of people would earn their living helping others improve their fitness, well-being, appearance or online presence would have seemed absurd. These jobs became possible because technology created wealth. When most people spend all of their income on food and survival, there was little demand for gyms, beauty salons, sports coaching, holidays or countless other services we now take for granted. Technological progress did not simply replace jobs, it created entirely new forms of prosperity and entirely new forms of human endeavour.
And so when the Bishop of Oxford asked, what jobs will AI destroy? And quite rightly expressed concern over it, we should also be asking what opportunities will it create? The. The honest answer is that many of those opportunities are currently beyond our imagination as. Again, Lord Johnson said, the jobs of 20 15th May be as difficult for us to envisage as software engineering or digital marketing would have been for our great grandfathers. But AI is not simply another technological advance.
It may prove to be a general purpose technology on a par with electricity, the steam engine or the internet. The printing press, democratised knowledge, artificial intelligence may democratise expertise. Imagine every child in Britain having a personal tutor available day and night, a tutor that understands precisely what they know and what they do not know. A tutor that can adapt to their individual learning style. A tutor with infinite patience. For most of history, that level of personal attention was only available to the privileged few.
AI offers that possibility of making it available to everyone. As Lord Kamall set out, there can be massive benefits from healthcare transformed in a similar way, not merely fewer forms to complete or fewer administrative tasks. But imagine every city, every citizen, having access to a personal health companion that understands their medical history, monitors their well-being, identifies risks early, and helps them live healthier lives. Knowledge that today is available only intermittently through a healthcare system under immense pressure could become available continuously.
An AI is already transforming other areas of society. We see it in science. We see it in manufacturing, we see it in business, and we see it as Baroness Helic set out in the battlefield. Ukraine analysts estimate the drones inflicted 96% of the Russian battlefield casualties in March 2026, 96%, a technology that barely existed a decade ago, is is reshaping wealth warfare before our eyes. A relatively inexpensive drone can now destroy military assets costing millions of pounds. History teaches us that technology, leadership and geopolitical leadership often go hand in hand.
The nations that mastered agriculture became dominant. The nations that mastered industrialisation became dominant. The nations that mastered computing are becoming dominant. It would be extraordinary if artificial intelligence proved to be any different. And that brings me to the challenge that faces our country. AI is going to happen. The question is not whether it arrives. The question is whether Britain helps shape it or whether it is shaped by others, whether we lead or whether we follow, whether we help write the future or merely live in a future written elsewhere.
Of course, there are risks. There are legitimate, legitimate concerns about safety, alignment and control. There are concerns about systems becoming more capable than we fully understand. There are concerns about bad actors, misinformation and misuse. These concerns are real. They deserve serious attention. And that is why the work undertaken by the AI Safety Institute is so important. As Lord Tarassenko set out, it is right that Britain should be a global leader in understanding and mitigating these rights. But there is another danger that we should not ignore.
As my noble friend Baroness Owens and Lord Raval set out so powerfully, the danger of becoming so fearful of the future that we surrender leadership of it, the danger of regulating ourselves into irrelevance, the danger of assuming that Britain slows down the rest of the world will slow down as well. History shows, unfortunately, that this is not the case. If responsible democratic nations choose not to lead, others will. The future will not be built only in democratic areas such as Silicon Valley or hopefully London.
In Cambridge, as Lord Brooke and Lord Cashman warned, it will also be shaped in places whose values we may not share in Beijing, Tehran or Pyongyang. The answer to risk is not to retreat. It is leadership. It is ensuring that winners in the race are countries committed to democracy, freedom, transparency and the rule of law. But, my Lords, as we discuss productivity, growth and competitiveness, we must not lose sight of the question posed by the Archbishop of Canterbury.
What kind of society are we building? What kind of relationships are we nurturing? What kind of people are we becoming? Perhaps nowhere is this more important than the area of companionship and care. Many of us have watched loved ones struggle with loneliness. Many of us have worried about elderly relatives living alone. Many of us have wished that someone could be more often there than distant work and life permits. As Lord Alderdice said, future AI companions and robotic carers may provide comfort, companionship and practical support to millions.
They may know our stories. They may understand our habits. They may remember every conversation. They may never become impatient. They may never tire. They may never forget. For some people, particularly those who are isolated, vulnerable, or neurodivergent, such technologies may prove genuinely transformational. And yet they raise profound questions. If AI can become our tutor, our advisor, our healthcare companion, and perhaps even our friend, what becomes of human relationships? As Baroness Gill, Lord Taylor, Bishop of Leicester Lord Frost and many others asked, what happens if people increasingly choose the company of machines over the complexities of other human beings? What happens if young people can learn, work, shop and socialise without ever leaving their homes? What happens if a society connected by technology becomes disconnected from one another? What if AI replaces love? And as Lord Griffiths warned, we need the other AI artificial intelligence, sorry.
Artificial insemination alongside artificial intelligence. As Lord Rook said, the danger is not that machines become more human. The danger is that humans become less human, that convenience replaces community. That interaction replaces relationships. That simulation replaces companionship. And so I return to where I began. The archbishop has done this house a great service by reminding us that the central question is not what artificial intelligence can do. The central question is what kind of society we wish to become.
As we embrace AI to enhance that society rather than diminish it. So throughout human history, humanity has adapted to extraordinary change. I believe we will adapt again. I believe AI will create immense prosperity. I believe it will cure diseases, transform education, and and improve lives in ways we can scarcely imagine. I believe Britain should strive to be among the winners of this revolution rather than among those left behind. But if this technology is to serve humanity rather than diminish it, we will need more than scientists, entrepreneurs and politicians as Baroness Eaton, as Baroness Stuart.
And the Bishop of Portsmouth said, we will need moral leadership. We will need people willing to ask, not simply what can we do, but what should we do? We will need voices willing to defend human dignity, family, friendship, community and purpose. And as we step into this brave new world, we will need technological leadership. But more than ever, we will need moral leadership. That is why I thank the Archbishop for bringing forward this debate today. For the challenge before us is not merely to build more intelligent machines.
It is to. It is to ensure that in doing so, we remain fully human here.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
My Lords, I'm pleased to respond to this debate, and I thank. Sincerely, the Most Reverend Primate, the Archbishop of Canterbury, for initiating this discussion and for setting out in her opening speech the opportunities and challenges in the context of some of the most profound questions that face us as as the Most reverend primate set out, this debate goes to the heart out, this debate goes to the heart of what kind of society we want to build. In an age of rapid technological change, AI is already reshaping our economy, our public services, and how people relate to one another.
This government believes that AI has transformative potential for the UK, from scientific innovation and public sector reform to economic growth. The responsibility on government is
14:22
Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Labour)
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Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Business and Trade) (Labour)
also clear to ensure that this transformation strengthens rather than diminishes the fabric of our than diminishes the fabric of our society. I joined so many of the noble peers that have spoken today, appreciating the contribution of appreciating the contribution of the papal encyclical, the Magnifica Humanitas. It is welcome that as we Humanitas. It is welcome that as we conclude our debate today, there is also a desire that we continue this conversation on how we can build a conversation on how we can build a better society in this AI enabled world with all parts of society.
AI capabilities are advancing and at an extraordinary pace. In only a few years, systems have moved from completing narrow tasks to undertaking undertaking complex workflows, writing code, supporting research, and making decisions at scale. These changes are already reshaping the nature of work, automating routine tasks or augmenting professional roles, and creating entirely new forms of economic activity. As Lord Markham set out, this transformation presents a profound opportunity to increase productivity and improve living standards. It does also raise real questions about disruption, especially to labour markets.
AI systems are being integrated into everyday services in healthcare, education, financial services and government. These raise important questions which many noble Lords have raised about accountability and fairness, how decisions are made, how outcomes are explained and how we ensure that systems work for everyone. And underpinning all of this, as the noble Lords have pointed out, there are some broader societal questions. As machines become more capable. Where do we want human judgement, human responsibility and human connection to sit? I will attempt to address the points that have been made in the debate today, so that we can build a cohesive society that works for all, giving people the skills and opportunity
AI capabilities are advancing and at an extraordinary pace. In only a few years, systems have moved from completing narrow tasks to undertaking undertaking complex workflows, writing code, supporting research, and making decisions at scale. These changes are already reshaping the nature of work, automating routine tasks or augmenting professional roles, and creating entirely new forms of economic activity. As Lord Markham set out, this transformation presents a profound opportunity to increase productivity and improve living standards. It does also raise real questions about disruption, especially to labour markets.
AI systems are being integrated into everyday services in healthcare, education, financial services and government. These raise important questions which many noble Lords have raised about accountability and fairness, how decisions are made, how outcomes are explained and how we ensure that systems work for everyone. And underpinning all of this, as the noble Lords have pointed out, there are some broader societal questions. As machines become more capable. Where do we want human judgement, human responsibility and human connection to sit? I will attempt to address the points that have been made in the debate today, so that we can build a cohesive society that works for all, giving people the skills and opportunity
14:24
Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)
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Baroness Lloyd of Effra, Parliamentary Under Secretary of State (Department for Science, Innovation and Technology) (Labour)
so that AI does not lead to further inequality, but builds a fairer society. And so that British values and Britain's unique talents, again, that many today have highlighted our scientists, our universities, our industry shape AI for the benefit of all. For those matters that I do not reach. Address. Today I will write to global Peers. To start with, many noble Lords have mentioned the concerns that misuse of AI has the potential to alter the nature of truth and public discourse.
The right Reverend prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, Baroness Gill Baroness Prashar Baroness Teather and Baroness Helic AI, can lower the barrier to entry for creating disinformation, allowing for greater scale and speed of production. A more persuasive and realistic content. This can increase the volume and sophistication of misleading information circulating online, making it harder for individuals to distinguish between authentic and false content. We remain well prepared to ensure the integrity and security of the democratic processes, with robust systems in place to protect against a range of threats, including foreign interference, the government addresses these risks through coordinated efforts led by the Defending Democracy Task Force and the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit, bringing together departments, law enforcement intelligence agencies to monitor and mitigate threats in order that there is coordinated, coordinated action to protect electoral integrity and strengthen societal resistance.
Resilience. The government uses a broad toolkit of legislative and non-legislative actions through the Online Safety Act, engagement with platforms and civil society and media literacy initiatives to make it harder to spread false information in the online environment and reduced its impact on users. Many noble Lords have rightly mentioned the importance of media literacy with the advancing technology. The government absolutely agrees this is critical. We launched our Media Literacy Action Plan in March and are working with civil society, industry and others to give people the skills, confidence and critical thinking to navigate the increasingly changing online world.
Alongside that, we are committed to working with schools to strengthen media literacy in the updated national curriculum. Following the Independent Curriculum and Assessment review. This equally will support young people develop their critical thinking skills skills in order to understand how and how to spot understand misinformation and disinformation. As many noble Lords have also mentioned. Alongside some of these changes, AI is beginning to reshape the way people relate to one another. Individuals are interacting not just with technology, but through it, in some cases with it as if it were human.
The emergence of the AI companion system is a clear example. There is also a risk of misleading or harmful advice, especially in contexts such as mental health. While AI can support clinicians and improve access to services, it must be used responsibly. The government is clear that AI chatbots must not replace advice and support from from trained medical professionals in the NHS, ensuring AI technologies are safe is a top priority. That is why the Department of Health and NHS England are working closely with key regulators on a number of projects and initiatives to further bolster the safety of AI in health and care, and to ensure regulatory pathways are clear for both developers and adopters.
This includes projects such as the AI and digital Regulation service and the AI airlock. More broadly, we must consider how systems designed to be engaging and persuasive interact with fundamental human needs for connection, for recognition, and for meaning. If these systems are not designed in governance carefully, there is a risk they could exploit rather than support those needs. My noble friend, Lord Knight, Lord Tarassenko, Lord Magan, Lord Carter of Haslemere and others many others have raised the issue of chatbots.
We have taken powers in the Police and Crime Act to bring unregulated chat books into the scope of the Online Safety Act and its requirements in relation to illegal content. Plus, as many noble Lords know here very well, we have discussed extensively the powers in the Children and Wellbeing and Schools Act and in response to. In order to respond effectively and quickly to the consultation about growing up in an online world, we have taken powers to act quickly on those findings in relation to children, and we are looking in that context at children's use of of chatbots, because these issues go to the heart of what it means to be human in a digital age.
I also want to reference many of the points that have been made today. That connection and community is a vital part of our human nature. The context in which we absorb and adopt AI is in a social context. We live and work in families as individuals and in communities and charities and faith organisations. Our third sector, we all have an incredibly important role in building our communities. Lord Alderdice. Lord Raval, Lord Frost all mentioned the importance of the social context in which we are living and the importance that we all have in doing this.
And sometimes in these AI debates, we tend to just look at how AI is being adopted in public services. But obviously, there is a whole host of other initiatives that the government is taking. For example, in respect of the government's tenure health plan, one very significant pillar of that is the neighbourhood health centres, with 27 new neighbourhood health centres across England and partnering with charities and others to to to to deliver targeted support locally. These will go alongside our efforts to adopt AI in public services.
Many Lords return to the question of AI regulation. Lord Pitt-Watson Lord Holmes, Lord Taylor, Baroness Prashar Lord Waldegrave and Baroness Kidron and Lord Clement-Jones. The government is taking the approach to regulation that ensures that AI is safe, secure and trustworthy. As noble Lords know, we are taking a context based approach ensuring that AI systems are regulated at the point of use by regulators who understand their sectors. We are strengthening the capability of those regulators so they can so they can respond effectively to emerging risks.
has w regulators earlier this year asked they will enable safe, AI powered innovation and report on progress. We have also criminalised some of the most harmful uses of AI, including tools designated to generate child sexual abuse material and non-consensual intimate images, and we are taking the powers that I mentioned to respond quickly to our consultation through the Children Wellbeing and Schools Act, ensuring we can act on evidence related to children's use of AI systems, which also is looking at addictive features, something that Lord Hastings mentioned in his intervention.
I would also like to comment that this consultation generated an enormous engagement with, I think, 100,000 responses, the points that noble Lords made about the importance of discussing these. These matters and the development of AI is is very well appreciated. Baroness Bottomley and others talked about the importance of understanding and managing frontier risks, and many Lords mentioned the importance of the AI Security Institute. It is indeed world leading. It is enabling us to assess the most advanced systems and identify where safeguards are needed by collaborating with leading developers.
This work is already improving the safety of systems before they are deployed at scale. It enables us to anticipate risks from misuse in areas such as cyber and biosecurity, to the potential for persuasion and manipulation. Through the AI Security Institute, the government will ensure that we have the institutional resilience required to respond to novel risks and protect our society, should it come under threat from the most advanced systems. I also want to mention, perhaps in response to Lord Lord Cashman points and those again made by others about the importance of trust in AI adoption, that the.
The development of AI assurance is a critical part of ethical. Responsible development of AI. We published a roadmap that trusted third party AI assurance in September 2025, setting out our ambition and the actions we are taking to support a thriving AI assurance market in the UK, and to ensure widespread adoption of safe and responsible AI across the UK. Noble Lords. Lord Markham, Baroness Spielman, Baroness Stuart. Lord Stevenson Lord McNally. The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, Baroness Fall, amongst others mentioned, importantly drew our attention to the impacts on labour markets.
We are taking carefully. We are looking very seriously at how AI may reshape the labour market and the lived experience of work across the country. We have established the AI and future of work unit, bringing together expertise from across departments and industry to monitor how AI is affecting jobs, wages and opportunity in real time. Early analysis shows that AI is progressing rapidly and may be changing patterns in hiring in some occupations, but also makes clear that these trends are complex and not driven by any single factor.
That's why our approach is not to assume outcomes, but to track closely, assess rigorously, and act early where needed. We're strengthening this capability further through the creation of the new AI I Economics Institute, expanding our ability to understand the broader economic impacts of AI. Noble Lords. Johnson and others drew attention to the fact that we will need to adapt. Our curriculums, our higher education and other universities to this in respect of what government's doing. We are working closely with industry through the modern Industrial Strategy, working with all sectors identified there closely to identify what skills they will need for the future, so that we have clarity on whether these are the skills that we expect today, or skills that need to be evolved and changed in respect of the developments that we're seeing in all parts of the labour market, but including AI, I think fundamentally, we are also investing in people because we we believe the opportunities of AI in the UK will only be realised if the workforce is equipped to harness them.
And I'd like to wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port for his focus on digital inclusion. That is absolutely essential that we pursue a full digital inclusion agenda for young people, but not just for young people to ensure that all can benefit from access, safe access to to the digital economy, safe access to, to AI that they have the confidence skills as well as the connectivity and the devices to be able to do so. That is why we published our digital action plan and why we are working with local communities to support digital inclusion.
Much has been said about the rising level of NEETs during this debate, and Alan Milburn's important report. The cause of this rise as he set out are varied, and the extent to which AI is playing a role in driving this trend remains uncertain. What we are doing is taking action through the Youth Guarantee and Growth and Skills Levy to expand high quality training, apprenticeships and workplace experiences so young people can enable all sectors with confidence and gain the skills that they need to enter the workforce.
Today, we want employment rates to increase, and we want to see more and more young people entering fulfilling roles. Baroness Stuart, Lord Ahmad, Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Teather highlighted the importance of responsible AI adoption across the public sector. We are embedding framework standards and guidance to ensure AI is deployed in a way that is fair, transparent and accountable. This includes the data and AI ethics framework, the AI playbook, and transparency standards that ensure that the public can ensure can understand how systems are used.
We're also supporting the development of a third party AI assurance ecosystem across all sectors. This is critical not just for risk management, but but for building business confidence in deploying AI and building trust in the systems we use. One of the areas this is most important is in the use of AI in education. DSIT in the Department for education are currently working together to enable schools to access safe, high quality and effective AI tutoring tools. Up to eight EdTech and AI organisations will be selected to receive up to 300 zero zero £0 each to design and build the next generation of AI tutoring tools to support up to 450,000 disadvantaged pupils with personalised 1 to 1 pupils with personalised 1 to 1 learning.
I do want to talk, as many others did. Lord Raval Lord Megan Lord Johnston about the opportunities for the UK through the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we have set out a bold vision to lead in shaping this AI revolution. One year on from that plan, the vision is being realised with the majority of commitments delivered and the next phase firmly underway. At the heart of this approach are our AI growth zones, which are transforming the UK's capacity to build and deploy AI at scale.
We are ensuring that UK's AI infrastructure is developed in a way that is sustainable and aligned with our Clean Power ambitions. We are also unlocking £104 billion in water infrastructure investment, which includes improving water supplies around data centres. And just as importantly, we're ensuring that the value created by AI is anchored here in the UK. UK AI sovereignty means ensuring the UK has the capability, access and influence it needs in the technologies that will shape our economy, public services and national security.
For too long we have seen British innovation scale elsewhere, with companies forced to move abroad to access capital, infrastructure or markets. Our response is the creation of the sovereign AI unit and its associated fund, and a new, more active approach to supporting AI companies backed by around £500 million, this initiative allows the government to invest directly in promising UK firms to support the development of critical technologies and provide access to assets such as compute data and early procurement opportunities.
This is not about total self-sufficiency or turning away from trusted international partners. It's about ensuring that the UK has genuine strengths in research, talent and innovation. We can translate them into long term economic benefit. And. The Archbishop has rightly caused us to ask not only how AI will impact society, but what we will do with AI. The outcomes depend on the frameworks we build, the safeguards we put in place, and the values we uphold. The government is determined to ensure that AI serves society, not the other way round, that it strengthens our economy, supports our public services and enhances human relationships rather than undermining them.
If we approach this moment with seriousness about the risks and confidence in our ability to shape the future, then AI will become a force not for division, but for shared progress and collective benefit. And I look forward to continuing this important discussion with the House.
The right Reverend prelate, the Bishop of Leicester, Baroness Gill Baroness Prashar Baroness Teather and Baroness Helic AI, can lower the barrier to entry for creating disinformation, allowing for greater scale and speed of production. A more persuasive and realistic content. This can increase the volume and sophistication of misleading information circulating online, making it harder for individuals to distinguish between authentic and false content. We remain well prepared to ensure the integrity and security of the democratic processes, with robust systems in place to protect against a range of threats, including foreign interference, the government addresses these risks through coordinated efforts led by the Defending Democracy Task Force and the Joint Election Security and Preparedness Unit, bringing together departments, law enforcement intelligence agencies to monitor and mitigate threats in order that there is coordinated, coordinated action to protect electoral integrity and strengthen societal resistance.
Resilience. The government uses a broad toolkit of legislative and non-legislative actions through the Online Safety Act, engagement with platforms and civil society and media literacy initiatives to make it harder to spread false information in the online environment and reduced its impact on users. Many noble Lords have rightly mentioned the importance of media literacy with the advancing technology. The government absolutely agrees this is critical. We launched our Media Literacy Action Plan in March and are working with civil society, industry and others to give people the skills, confidence and critical thinking to navigate the increasingly changing online world.
Alongside that, we are committed to working with schools to strengthen media literacy in the updated national curriculum. Following the Independent Curriculum and Assessment review. This equally will support young people develop their critical thinking skills skills in order to understand how and how to spot understand misinformation and disinformation. As many noble Lords have also mentioned. Alongside some of these changes, AI is beginning to reshape the way people relate to one another. Individuals are interacting not just with technology, but through it, in some cases with it as if it were human.
The emergence of the AI companion system is a clear example. There is also a risk of misleading or harmful advice, especially in contexts such as mental health. While AI can support clinicians and improve access to services, it must be used responsibly. The government is clear that AI chatbots must not replace advice and support from from trained medical professionals in the NHS, ensuring AI technologies are safe is a top priority. That is why the Department of Health and NHS England are working closely with key regulators on a number of projects and initiatives to further bolster the safety of AI in health and care, and to ensure regulatory pathways are clear for both developers and adopters.
This includes projects such as the AI and digital Regulation service and the AI airlock. More broadly, we must consider how systems designed to be engaging and persuasive interact with fundamental human needs for connection, for recognition, and for meaning. If these systems are not designed in governance carefully, there is a risk they could exploit rather than support those needs. My noble friend, Lord Knight, Lord Tarassenko, Lord Magan, Lord Carter of Haslemere and others many others have raised the issue of chatbots.
We have taken powers in the Police and Crime Act to bring unregulated chat books into the scope of the Online Safety Act and its requirements in relation to illegal content. Plus, as many noble Lords know here very well, we have discussed extensively the powers in the Children and Wellbeing and Schools Act and in response to. In order to respond effectively and quickly to the consultation about growing up in an online world, we have taken powers to act quickly on those findings in relation to children, and we are looking in that context at children's use of of chatbots, because these issues go to the heart of what it means to be human in a digital age.
I also want to reference many of the points that have been made today. That connection and community is a vital part of our human nature. The context in which we absorb and adopt AI is in a social context. We live and work in families as individuals and in communities and charities and faith organisations. Our third sector, we all have an incredibly important role in building our communities. Lord Alderdice. Lord Raval, Lord Frost all mentioned the importance of the social context in which we are living and the importance that we all have in doing this.
And sometimes in these AI debates, we tend to just look at how AI is being adopted in public services. But obviously, there is a whole host of other initiatives that the government is taking. For example, in respect of the government's tenure health plan, one very significant pillar of that is the neighbourhood health centres, with 27 new neighbourhood health centres across England and partnering with charities and others to to to to deliver targeted support locally. These will go alongside our efforts to adopt AI in public services.
Many Lords return to the question of AI regulation. Lord Pitt-Watson Lord Holmes, Lord Taylor, Baroness Prashar Lord Waldegrave and Baroness Kidron and Lord Clement-Jones. The government is taking the approach to regulation that ensures that AI is safe, secure and trustworthy. As noble Lords know, we are taking a context based approach ensuring that AI systems are regulated at the point of use by regulators who understand their sectors. We are strengthening the capability of those regulators so they can so they can respond effectively to emerging risks.
has w regulators earlier this year asked they will enable safe, AI powered innovation and report on progress. We have also criminalised some of the most harmful uses of AI, including tools designated to generate child sexual abuse material and non-consensual intimate images, and we are taking the powers that I mentioned to respond quickly to our consultation through the Children Wellbeing and Schools Act, ensuring we can act on evidence related to children's use of AI systems, which also is looking at addictive features, something that Lord Hastings mentioned in his intervention.
I would also like to comment that this consultation generated an enormous engagement with, I think, 100,000 responses, the points that noble Lords made about the importance of discussing these. These matters and the development of AI is is very well appreciated. Baroness Bottomley and others talked about the importance of understanding and managing frontier risks, and many Lords mentioned the importance of the AI Security Institute. It is indeed world leading. It is enabling us to assess the most advanced systems and identify where safeguards are needed by collaborating with leading developers.
This work is already improving the safety of systems before they are deployed at scale. It enables us to anticipate risks from misuse in areas such as cyber and biosecurity, to the potential for persuasion and manipulation. Through the AI Security Institute, the government will ensure that we have the institutional resilience required to respond to novel risks and protect our society, should it come under threat from the most advanced systems. I also want to mention, perhaps in response to Lord Lord Cashman points and those again made by others about the importance of trust in AI adoption, that the.
The development of AI assurance is a critical part of ethical. Responsible development of AI. We published a roadmap that trusted third party AI assurance in September 2025, setting out our ambition and the actions we are taking to support a thriving AI assurance market in the UK, and to ensure widespread adoption of safe and responsible AI across the UK. Noble Lords. Lord Markham, Baroness Spielman, Baroness Stuart. Lord Stevenson Lord McNally. The right reverend Prelate, the Bishop of Oxford, Baroness Fall, amongst others mentioned, importantly drew our attention to the impacts on labour markets.
We are taking carefully. We are looking very seriously at how AI may reshape the labour market and the lived experience of work across the country. We have established the AI and future of work unit, bringing together expertise from across departments and industry to monitor how AI is affecting jobs, wages and opportunity in real time. Early analysis shows that AI is progressing rapidly and may be changing patterns in hiring in some occupations, but also makes clear that these trends are complex and not driven by any single factor.
That's why our approach is not to assume outcomes, but to track closely, assess rigorously, and act early where needed. We're strengthening this capability further through the creation of the new AI I Economics Institute, expanding our ability to understand the broader economic impacts of AI. Noble Lords. Johnson and others drew attention to the fact that we will need to adapt. Our curriculums, our higher education and other universities to this in respect of what government's doing. We are working closely with industry through the modern Industrial Strategy, working with all sectors identified there closely to identify what skills they will need for the future, so that we have clarity on whether these are the skills that we expect today, or skills that need to be evolved and changed in respect of the developments that we're seeing in all parts of the labour market, but including AI, I think fundamentally, we are also investing in people because we we believe the opportunities of AI in the UK will only be realised if the workforce is equipped to harness them.
And I'd like to wholeheartedly agree with my noble friend Lord Griffiths of Burry Port for his focus on digital inclusion. That is absolutely essential that we pursue a full digital inclusion agenda for young people, but not just for young people to ensure that all can benefit from access, safe access to to the digital economy, safe access to, to AI that they have the confidence skills as well as the connectivity and the devices to be able to do so. That is why we published our digital action plan and why we are working with local communities to support digital inclusion.
Much has been said about the rising level of NEETs during this debate, and Alan Milburn's important report. The cause of this rise as he set out are varied, and the extent to which AI is playing a role in driving this trend remains uncertain. What we are doing is taking action through the Youth Guarantee and Growth and Skills Levy to expand high quality training, apprenticeships and workplace experiences so young people can enable all sectors with confidence and gain the skills that they need to enter the workforce.
Today, we want employment rates to increase, and we want to see more and more young people entering fulfilling roles. Baroness Stuart, Lord Ahmad, Lord Clement-Jones and Baroness Teather highlighted the importance of responsible AI adoption across the public sector. We are embedding framework standards and guidance to ensure AI is deployed in a way that is fair, transparent and accountable. This includes the data and AI ethics framework, the AI playbook, and transparency standards that ensure that the public can ensure can understand how systems are used.
We're also supporting the development of a third party AI assurance ecosystem across all sectors. This is critical not just for risk management, but but for building business confidence in deploying AI and building trust in the systems we use. One of the areas this is most important is in the use of AI in education. DSIT in the Department for education are currently working together to enable schools to access safe, high quality and effective AI tutoring tools. Up to eight EdTech and AI organisations will be selected to receive up to 300 zero zero £0 each to design and build the next generation of AI tutoring tools to support up to 450,000 disadvantaged pupils with personalised 1 to 1 pupils with personalised 1 to 1 learning.
I do want to talk, as many others did. Lord Raval Lord Megan Lord Johnston about the opportunities for the UK through the AI Opportunities Action Plan, we have set out a bold vision to lead in shaping this AI revolution. One year on from that plan, the vision is being realised with the majority of commitments delivered and the next phase firmly underway. At the heart of this approach are our AI growth zones, which are transforming the UK's capacity to build and deploy AI at scale.
We are ensuring that UK's AI infrastructure is developed in a way that is sustainable and aligned with our Clean Power ambitions. We are also unlocking £104 billion in water infrastructure investment, which includes improving water supplies around data centres. And just as importantly, we're ensuring that the value created by AI is anchored here in the UK. UK AI sovereignty means ensuring the UK has the capability, access and influence it needs in the technologies that will shape our economy, public services and national security.
For too long we have seen British innovation scale elsewhere, with companies forced to move abroad to access capital, infrastructure or markets. Our response is the creation of the sovereign AI unit and its associated fund, and a new, more active approach to supporting AI companies backed by around £500 million, this initiative allows the government to invest directly in promising UK firms to support the development of critical technologies and provide access to assets such as compute data and early procurement opportunities.
This is not about total self-sufficiency or turning away from trusted international partners. It's about ensuring that the UK has genuine strengths in research, talent and innovation. We can translate them into long term economic benefit. And. The Archbishop has rightly caused us to ask not only how AI will impact society, but what we will do with AI. The outcomes depend on the frameworks we build, the safeguards we put in place, and the values we uphold. The government is determined to ensure that AI serves society, not the other way round, that it strengthens our economy, supports our public services and enhances human relationships rather than undermining them.
If we approach this moment with seriousness about the risks and confidence in our ability to shape the future, then AI will become a force not for division, but for shared progress and collective benefit. And I look forward to continuing this important discussion with the House.
14:43
The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Bishops)
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The Lord Archbishop of Canterbury (Bishops)
My Lords. Artificial >> My Lords. Artificial intelligence is a topic of such vast breadth and consequence. I'm vast breadth and consequence. I'm deeply aware that we have covered a huge variety of issues today and have still only scratched the surface. I hope that today's debate has been a helpful opportunity for a longer discussion on this most salient of topics, one which goes beyond party political debate to address the deeper questions and challenges at stake. And that one, and that one which considers the practicalities of decisions about AI for real people, for our relationships with one another and for society.
I am deeply grateful to the noble Lords for having covered so many area of expertise, and for the noble Baroness, the Minister, for responding to this debate. I am grateful that we have spent time focusing on the positive opportunities that AI brings, not least in the contributions from Baroness Bottomley, from Lord Ahmet, from Baroness Uddin, from Baroness Paul and from Lord Johnson and from Lord Shinkwin. We also. I am also very grateful that we spent time considering on what it is to be human, and also on the dignity of inherent in us as human beings.
I am grateful that Lord Clement-Jones recognises that actually we have a share, a shared common ground here for those who have of are of faith or of no faith. There were many contributions on this topic, not least by Lord Tarassenko and from Lord Knight and from Baroness Bell and Baroness Teather. I'm very, very grateful to Lord Aldridge and also, I think, followed up by Lord Parkinson on the comments of the difference between what is human and what is machine intelligence.
It was a topic that also was picked up by Lord Carter and for also by Lord Johnson of Marylebone. As he began to explore what judgement was. I am very grateful that Baroness Pasha quoted Tennyson. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. We spent a great deal of time speaking about relationships, relationships between ourselves and between society and. This was picked up by Lord Knight, Baroness Kidron, Lord Nagaraju and Lord Roe Lord Rook, and particularly the concern about the risk of relationships with technology and not people.
Lord Farmer spoke very powerfully about the impact of AI on relationships and social structures, particularly those within the family. Baroness Fall spoke about her concern that AI had brought to a close conversation, and I was also grateful to my noble friend, the prelate, the the Bishop of Leicester, for his comment that it goes beyond the family, to the wider society and to our acting as a healthy community in that way. I was very grateful for the reminder from Lord Ahmed that actually the gift of human relationships are often within our flaws, and I was encouraged that Baroness Paul did mention love.
And of course, as a Christian, love forgives all things and bears all things. Maybe one of the most concerning areas that we have brought out today is the impact on young people, and I was very grateful for the contribution from Lord Rook, among others. And of course, Lord Johnson of Lansdowne spoke about the fact that we need to prepare our young people, which in fact, we absolutely do. And that was expanded by Baroness Stuart, who spoke about the preparation in employment and in decision making, and others spoke about education.
Lord Markham reminded us that in history, change has occurred. However, that does not mean that we should not prepare for the change that is in front of us. Many noble Lords spoke about our responsibility in addressing the concerns, whether at a governmental level, whether at a corporate corporate level or whether at a, at the at the hands of our own actions. And that included Baroness Pasha Baroness Helic and Baroness Owen. And I was very grateful to the Baroness Owen for mentioning that there is a balance between pacing and not being outrun.
As we take this topic forward. For me, it was a very helpful reminder to hear from Lord Waldegrave and then Lord Parkinson that we do need to invest in humanities because if we are going to develop an ethical framework in which we can make these decisions and be informed, that is at the heart of doing that. Baroness Teather also reminded us that in doing that, we do need the space and partnership to be able to discuss those issues and to reflect with a breadth that we have within our society.
And Lord Brooke, thank you for your challenge to the Church of England, Anglicanism and faith groups to facilitate that discussion and reflection on a global stage. We spoke a lot about the responsibility for governance and regulation, and I think there were some helpful reminders from Lord Waldegrave and Baroness Bottomley, and also Lord Taylor, for the need to us to look to our past, to learn from our present and our future. I was grateful for the contribution from Lord home and Lord Brooke, about the question about whether we need to invest in our own model.
This was something that was picked up by my noble friend, the prelate, the right Reverend Bishop of Oxford, when he spoke about the BBC. And as I mentioned, my noble friend, I would like to recognise his contribution that he has made on this topic over a number of years. It has enriched not just the church, but I believe government and society. I was very grateful again to Lord Frost to bring us back to maybe where we started, to the overriding need that we have to have confidence in our own humanity.
The Bishop, my noble, noble friend, the prelate, the Bishop of Portsmouth, encouraged us to claim and not give away the agency that we have in that gift. And in doing that, and remembering that, I am grateful to Lord Cashman Lord Griffiths to. In their reminder to us that it is often those in society that are least able to manage change, that the change is most significant upon. My Lords, AI brings with it real positive opportunities, but we need to ensure that AI is being designed, built, regulated and used to the service of our glorious humanity, not to diminish it, to make us more human, not less.
There is nothing so precious to God on this earth than human life. That is the heart of the Christian message. And we must do all that we can do to
**** Possible New Speaker ****
treasure it too. Thank you. The question is that this motion be agreed to. As many as that be agreed to. As many as that opinion will say content. To the contrary, not content. The contents have it.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
have it. My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.
I am deeply grateful to the noble Lords for having covered so many area of expertise, and for the noble Baroness, the Minister, for responding to this debate. I am grateful that we have spent time focusing on the positive opportunities that AI brings, not least in the contributions from Baroness Bottomley, from Lord Ahmet, from Baroness Uddin, from Baroness Paul and from Lord Johnson and from Lord Shinkwin. We also. I am also very grateful that we spent time considering on what it is to be human, and also on the dignity of inherent in us as human beings.
I am grateful that Lord Clement-Jones recognises that actually we have a share, a shared common ground here for those who have of are of faith or of no faith. There were many contributions on this topic, not least by Lord Tarassenko and from Lord Knight and from Baroness Bell and Baroness Teather. I'm very, very grateful to Lord Aldridge and also, I think, followed up by Lord Parkinson on the comments of the difference between what is human and what is machine intelligence.
It was a topic that also was picked up by Lord Carter and for also by Lord Johnson of Marylebone. As he began to explore what judgement was. I am very grateful that Baroness Pasha quoted Tennyson. Knowledge comes, but wisdom lingers. We spent a great deal of time speaking about relationships, relationships between ourselves and between society and. This was picked up by Lord Knight, Baroness Kidron, Lord Nagaraju and Lord Roe Lord Rook, and particularly the concern about the risk of relationships with technology and not people.
Lord Farmer spoke very powerfully about the impact of AI on relationships and social structures, particularly those within the family. Baroness Fall spoke about her concern that AI had brought to a close conversation, and I was also grateful to my noble friend, the prelate, the the Bishop of Leicester, for his comment that it goes beyond the family, to the wider society and to our acting as a healthy community in that way. I was very grateful for the reminder from Lord Ahmed that actually the gift of human relationships are often within our flaws, and I was encouraged that Baroness Paul did mention love.
And of course, as a Christian, love forgives all things and bears all things. Maybe one of the most concerning areas that we have brought out today is the impact on young people, and I was very grateful for the contribution from Lord Rook, among others. And of course, Lord Johnson of Lansdowne spoke about the fact that we need to prepare our young people, which in fact, we absolutely do. And that was expanded by Baroness Stuart, who spoke about the preparation in employment and in decision making, and others spoke about education.
Lord Markham reminded us that in history, change has occurred. However, that does not mean that we should not prepare for the change that is in front of us. Many noble Lords spoke about our responsibility in addressing the concerns, whether at a governmental level, whether at a corporate corporate level or whether at a, at the at the hands of our own actions. And that included Baroness Pasha Baroness Helic and Baroness Owen. And I was very grateful to the Baroness Owen for mentioning that there is a balance between pacing and not being outrun.
As we take this topic forward. For me, it was a very helpful reminder to hear from Lord Waldegrave and then Lord Parkinson that we do need to invest in humanities because if we are going to develop an ethical framework in which we can make these decisions and be informed, that is at the heart of doing that. Baroness Teather also reminded us that in doing that, we do need the space and partnership to be able to discuss those issues and to reflect with a breadth that we have within our society.
And Lord Brooke, thank you for your challenge to the Church of England, Anglicanism and faith groups to facilitate that discussion and reflection on a global stage. We spoke a lot about the responsibility for governance and regulation, and I think there were some helpful reminders from Lord Waldegrave and Baroness Bottomley, and also Lord Taylor, for the need to us to look to our past, to learn from our present and our future. I was grateful for the contribution from Lord home and Lord Brooke, about the question about whether we need to invest in our own model.
This was something that was picked up by my noble friend, the prelate, the right Reverend Bishop of Oxford, when he spoke about the BBC. And as I mentioned, my noble friend, I would like to recognise his contribution that he has made on this topic over a number of years. It has enriched not just the church, but I believe government and society. I was very grateful again to Lord Frost to bring us back to maybe where we started, to the overriding need that we have to have confidence in our own humanity.
The Bishop, my noble, noble friend, the prelate, the Bishop of Portsmouth, encouraged us to claim and not give away the agency that we have in that gift. And in doing that, and remembering that, I am grateful to Lord Cashman Lord Griffiths to. In their reminder to us that it is often those in society that are least able to manage change, that the change is most significant upon. My Lords, AI brings with it real positive opportunities, but we need to ensure that AI is being designed, built, regulated and used to the service of our glorious humanity, not to diminish it, to make us more human, not less.
There is nothing so precious to God on this earth than human life. That is the heart of the Christian message. And we must do all that we can do to
**** Possible New Speaker ****
treasure it too. Thank you. The question is that this motion be agreed to. As many as that be agreed to. As many as that opinion will say content. To the contrary, not content. The contents have it.
**** Possible New Speaker ****
have it. My Lords, I beg to move that the House do now adjourn.