Digital secretary Michelle Donelan says UK government will not legislate on artificial intelligence (AI) but wants to develop a “pro-innovation” framework.
Donelan appeared before the Science, Innovation and Technology Committee to answer MPs’ questions about the UK’s current approach to fostering and regulating the development of AI.
The committee published an interim report on the UK’s developing AI governance arrangements at the end of August, which warned there is a danger the UK will be “left behind” by legislation being developed elsewhere, specifically the European Union’s (EU) AI Act.
The report identified 12 challenge areas for AI legislation related to various competition, accountability and social issues associated with AI’s operation, including bias, privacy, misrepresentation, data access, computing power, and open source.
Commenting on lack of AI legislation in the King’s Speech, Donelan said the UK was investing more than any other nation in AI safety.
Donelan added: “We’ve been ensuring that we’ve doubled down on getting a better handle on what exactly are the risks. I think it is important to remember that this is an emerging technology that is emerging quicker than any technology we’ve ever seen before. No country has a full handle on exactly what the risks are.”
Pressed by committee chair Greg Clark on whether the government will follow through on its commitment to place a statutory duty on regulators to have due regard for the AI whitepaper’s five principles (including safety and security, transparency and explainability; fairness; accountability and governance; and contestability and redress), Donelan said timing was key with any legislation, and that there is a risk of stifling innovation by acting too quickly without a proper understanding of the technology.
“To properly legislate, we need to be better able to understand the full capabilities of this technology,” she said, adding that while “every nation will eventually have to legislate” on AI, the government decided it was more important to be able to act quickly and get “tangible action now”.
“We don’t want to rush to legislate and get this wrong. We don’t want to stifle innovation…We want to ensure that our tools can enable us to deal with the problem in hand, which is fundamentally what we’ll be able to do with evaluating the models.”
