AI is "advancing at an extraordinary pace"
A cross-party group of MPs and peers has called for a new law governing artificial intelligence (AI), warning that existing legislation is not equipped to address growing human rights risks.
The Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said current laws and regulations are “ill-equipped” to deal with the scale and complexity of potential harms caused by AI.
In a new report, the committee called for an AI Bill to “address the scale and seriousness” of threats posed by the technology.
Labour MP Alex Sobel, who chairs the committee, said the UK and other countries do not currently have adequate laws to regulate AI.
He said: “Nowhere in the world, including the UK, has a current legislative and regulatory approach to AI that is fit for purpose.”
The government said AI is “advancing at an extraordinary pace” and presents both opportunities and risks.
A government spokesperson said: “We’re leading global efforts to test and understand AI, with the best-resourced security institute in the world, that will help us develop the standards and safeguards necessary to keep people safe.”
The JCHR’s report highlights several ways AI could affect people’s human rights, including:
- Displaying biases against particular groups when trained on large datasets collected from the internet. These datasets can contain racist, sexist and other harmful material.
- Creating and spreading misinformation.
- Producing sexualised images of women and girls.
- Scanning people’s faces without their consent.
The JCHR said the UK’s current legal framework for AI is “fragmented and difficult to navigate”, which it believes is “leaving gaps in protection”.
It called for a “single, independent AI oversight body… on a statutory basis” to oversee the technology.
The committee also wants different levels of risk to be formally recognised, with stricter requirements placed on higher-risk AI systems and models.
The report stated: “The AI Bill should establish a regulatory regime that classifies different risk levels and mandate more demanding obligations for higher-risk AI systems and models.
“Obligations should be placed on all stages of the AI lifecycle, ensuring those responsible in the supply chain for designing, amending and utilising AI systems are aware of their obligations and they are effectively addressed.
“Some uses of AI should be prohibited outright because they are incompatible with human rights. Potential areas for action include subliminal techniques, and inappropriate use of profiling or biometric data.”
According to Sobel, the rapid development of AI had left governments and regulators struggling to understand its potential consequences.
He added: “AI is heralded as an unprecedented era of technological development with the potential to transform our lives for better or for worse.
“It is moving with such speed and complexity that its impact is hard to accurately predict.”
“What is clear is that at present we are unprepared to deal with its consequences, however potentially dire they may be.”
The JCHR’s 12 members are drawn from both Houses of Parliament and currently include MPs and peers from the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.
The report comes as concerns about AI regulation and its potential impact continue to grow internationally.
Anthropic chief executive Dario Amodei called for the pace of AI development to slow down. OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Elon Musk, who leads rival AI company xAI, said they agreed with him.
Meanwhile, former Anthropic employee Jacob Coxon said staff developing AI systems were “genuinely frightened” about the future of humanity.
