Artificial Intelligence

Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate Excerpts

Monday 26th June 2023 Lords Chamber

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

I thank the noble Lord for that question. The starting point for the AI White Paper—of which I do not accept the characterisation of tentative—was, first, not to duplicate existing regulators’ work; secondly, not to go after specific technologies, because the technology space is changing so quickly; and, thirdly, to remain agile and adaptive. We are seeing the benefits of being agile and adapting to a very rapidly shifting landscape.

[Lord Kirkhope of Harrogate (Con)]

My Lords, I congratulate my noble friend the Minister and the Government on getting involved in international negotiations and discussions in this area. However, is this not an area where we have to be careful that we do not have a situation where there is nothing to fear but fear itself, and where we will lose out, if we are not careful, in having overregulation that prevents us using AI to the fullest extent for positive, excellent reasons on behalf of the people of this country?

[Viscount Camrose (Con)]

My noble friend is absolutely right that the potential benefits of AI are extremely great, but so too are the risks. One of the functions of our recently announced Foundation Model Taskforce will be to scan the horizon on both sides of this—for the risks, which are considerable, and for the benefits, which are considerable too.