British AI debates: “The limits of voluntary agreements” | SZ Dossier
13 June 2024
This interview was first published in the SZ Dossier on 13 June 2024, a Süddeutsche Zeitung newsletter.
Now that the European elections are over, more eyes will turn to the United Kingdom, where Prime Minister Rishi Sunak of the Tories will face his challenger Keir Starmer of the Labour Party in early July.
According to polls, Starmer will probably succeed Sunak, even though trouble has been brewing in the party.
And as if internal strife wasn't enough, deepfakes are also joining in. For example, a video clip of Labour MP Wes Streeting – doctored to make him seem to call his party colleague Diane Abbot a “stupid woman” – has been doing the rounds. This didn't actually happen, of course, but the video is circulating on X, even though even the platform now notes that it's manipulation.
“However, these remain isolated cases – not enough to demonstrate the urgency of the problem,” said Aidan Muller, co-founder of Appraise Network, a platform to promote dialogue about AI in the United Kingdom. From his point of view, it is “ultimately inevitable” that the flood of deepfakes and misinformation will lead to serious problems in election campaigns and beyond, Muller told SZ Dossier in the Tea Room of the Conrad Hotel at St. James's Park in Westminster.
He began taking an interest in the topic seven years ago: “The trigger for this was the Brexit referendum and the election of Donald Trump in the US.” He felt at the time that society’s relationship to truth had fundamentally changed. “The assumption that facts will speak for themselves is a fallacy today.”
AI has exacerbated the situation. He and his co-founder have been accompanying the AI debate in the United Kingdom – from the initial euphoria surrounding the launch of ChatGPT in late autumn 2022, to the hysteria half a year later which included open letters warning about AI as if it were the new climate change, and to the current and ongoing discussions about opportunities and risks. His organisation came to the conclusion ‘that the truth is probably somewhere in between,’ Muller said. ‘We are both excited about the technology, but also cautious about the pitfalls.’
The incumbent British government is trying to channel the conversations, as Muller acknowledged approvingly. “One of the goals with these summits is the formalisation of a multi-stakeholder engagement process,” he said about the AI Seoul Summit recently held by London in South Korea together with the government there (as reported by SZ Dossier). They want to create a platform that allows governments of different countries to talk to each other, but also with technology experts and various civil society groups.
“I think the current government has tried to secure a place at the table and set the agenda,” Muller said. One could argue about how successful this has been so far, but from his point of view, it has been “reasonably successful in that it has set a really important process in motion.” There had been sufficient criticism, including about an allegedly one-sidedly positive portrayal of AI, as well as about guest lists with too few representatives from civil society. But the summit had been useful “in terms of starting a discussion,” he said.
“There is a lack of trust in companies to do the right thing, and a lack of trust in the government to regulate the area appropriately.”
Regarding AI regulation in the United Kingdom, the incumbent government has proposed “a kind of context-based, innovation-friendly approach that deliberately holds back and doesn't make regulations,” he said. The recommendation is that there should be no new central AI regulatory authority, but that responsibility should be delegated to existing regulatory authorities in the respective sectors. According to the government, these are best placed to recognise the challenges that AI poses for a particular sector.
Then last autumn, the conclusion of the AI summit in Bletchley Park, which attracted worldwide interest, was that they would work with all major AI technology companies and ensure that they adequately test their pioneer models before publishing them. However, not much has happened in practice since then, Muller said. “I think this probably shows the limits of voluntary agreements.”
Some in Westminster are of the opinion that no new law is needed because you can't do anything with AI that isn't already legally punished. But there are existing regulations that are significantly challenged by AI, “such as our relationship to intellectual property and copyright,” he said.
Because of its complexity, AI regulation is not an obvious election campaign topic. However, surveys in recent months have shown that the population is thinking about AI, and is divided into roughly equal groups of enthusiasts, sceptics and undecideds. “Among the British public, optimism about the technology has been declining,” Muller said. People are concerned about unemployment and the exacerbation of inequalities. And: “There is a lack of trust in companies to do the right thing, and a lack of trust in the government to regulate the area appropriately.”
So there is some concern, and Prime Minister Sunak will point to the AI summits as a sign that the Tories are taking a leadership role on the global stage, while Labour has not yet published their manifesto, Muller said. The Labour leadership had announced in March that they wanted to publish an AI strategy – “and we're still waiting for it,” he said. “We're not really sure what their plans are yet.” Labour leader Starmer told the BBC on Monday that the party's manifesto should be published today.
How far apart the Tories and Labour actually are when it comes to AI is therefore still unclear, Muller said. But to get a sense of the situation, Appraise Network has conducted some surveys among British MPs about their attitudes towards AI.
“One of the biggest differences between the two parties is in their attitude towards unemployment, that is, the potential threat of unemployment as a result of AI,” Muller said. This fear tends to be more pronounced in the Labour camp. “This is a natural thing because there is a historically close relationship with the trade unions.”
Laurenz Gehrke is the editor of SZ Dossier.