'Disappointment' as UK hits pause button on AI Bill
Delay gives new Government an opportunity to reflect on EU AI Act and consult
WHAT’S HAPPENED?
DESPITE REPORTS that an AI Bill would be announced in the King’s Speech the new UK Government instead chose to keep those pushing for regulatory intervention waiting. “[My Government] will seek to establish the appropriate legislation to place requirements on those working to develop the most powerful artificial intelligence models,” said King Charles as he unveiled Labour’s legislative programme.
Speaking to Charting Gen AI, Lord Clement-Jones, Liberal Democrat spokesperson for science, innovation and technology in the upper house, said: “There appears to be a definite lag in the introduction of the much-trailed AI Bill which is disappointing considering Labour’s prominent manifesto commitment to turn AI voluntary agreements into regulation.”
In briefing notes accompanying the King’s Speech prime minister Sir Keir Starmer said the power of AI would be harnessed “to strengthen safety frameworks” and referenced a Product Safety and Metrology Bill. Lord Clement-Jones said: “This seems designed to cover physical products incorporating new technology such as AI, so the cart seems to be emerging before the horse!”
Labour’s manifesto promised “binding regulation” of the most powerful AI models and a new Regulatory Innovation Office, working across industry sectors and bridging existing regulatory functions across government. Earlier this year, Peter Kyle, now the science, innovation and technology secretary, said Labour would introduce legislation forcing AIs to share test data “and tell us what they are testing for”.
“I would have liked to have seen something going beyond Labour’s manifesto commitments,” added Lord Clement-Jones. “We need to clarify IP law in the face of large-scale ingestion of copyright material by generative AI developers and ensure greater transparency.”
Gaia Marcus, director of the Ada Lovelace Institute, welcomed the Government’s confirmation that legislation is coming but said an AI Bill needed to be brought forward “as soon as is practicable”. “We have long argued that voluntary commitments from the tech industry to protect people from the potential harms of AI models are not good enough. Only hard rules enshrined in law can incentivise developers and deployers of AI to comply and empower regulators to act,” she added.
Speaking before the King’s Speech, Julia Rowan, senior policy and public affairs manager at PRS for Music, said: “What’s missing in legislation is a transparency regime for AI. We need regulation that would place an obligation on AI developers to disclose what their models have been trained on in a way that enables enforcement of their rights by music creators. Without record-keeping of training data, music creators won’t be able to know whether their works are being used by AI models.”
WHY SHOULD WE CARE?
✨ This was an opportunity for the new Government to show Labour was moving on from the previous Conservative administration’s ‘wait and see’ stance on AI intervention. Delaying the AI Bill gives Starmer and his team an opportunity to gauge responses to the EU’s risk-based AI Act, which is being phased in over two years from 1 August. It also gives the Government an opportunity to consult, and for human-made media orgs to further press the case on copyright protection in the AI era.
There’ll be more reaction to the AI Bill no-show in tomorrow’s Weekly Newsletter.