The Science, Innovation, and Technology Select Committee released its new report on the Governance of artificial intelligence today. The report highlights the regulatory situation in the US and the EU and urged the next UK Government to make AI regulation a priority from day one.
In 2022, Stop Killer Robots UK was one of 115 organisations who provided submissions to this inquiry. In our submission we highlighted:
- The current lack of a regulatory environment in the UK compared to the EU and the US, and the need to establish a regulator in the UK.
- The need to conduct a full public consultation on the use of AI in weapons systems and develop an ethical code of conduct for emerging technology and weapons systems.
- The risk of AI in weapons systems and the dual use such technologies could have in the private sector.
- An obligation to ensure meaningful human control over high risk or high harm technologies.
- The need to tighten arms export controls and better regulate the export dual-use components which could be incorporated into autonomous weapon systems.
- That there should be no national security exemption to any legislation regulating AI (as is the case in the EU).
While the committees report didn’t explore the topic of autonomous weapon systems in depth, there were many welcome recommendations in the report. The key theme of the report was the urgent need to develop regulation within the UK. Throughout the report, the committee urged the new government to introduce legislation to regulate AI systems.
There were also welcome calls for insuring meaningful human controls on AI systems and transparency over their development. The report also commends the work of the AI Safety Institute with recommendations that called for the new government to continue supporting it and urging greater funding.
You can find a copy of the report below.
