Contribution
My Lords, I will very briefly make two points. The first is to perhaps allay some fears that noble colleagues may have about the constitutional propriety of where we find ourselves, and for this, I thank our wonderful Library.
This is a Lords starter Bill—it started in your Lordships’ House. Since 1997, there have been no fewer than 14 Bills which started in the Lords and have gone backwards and forwards for ping-pong three times or more. Of the 14 Bills, two of them got a score of five, one got a score of four and 11 got a score of three, so we are not in virgin or new territory. This is tried and tested and it is what happens when there are fundamental disagreements, and there is nothing unconstitutional about trying to settle a genuine disagreement in a way which gets each side to listen to the other, to acknowledge the other side’s strength of view and to come up with some sort of accommodation which both sides can live with. We are having a problem arriving at that, but we are not in a state of constitutional impropriety. That is the first point that I wish to make.
The second is to emphasise the point my noble friend was making on the urgency of this. I have some sympathy for His Majesty’s Government here. When I spoke briefly on Monday, I tried to indicate the background and the dilemma that our Government find themselves in, and I have a lot of sympathy for that.
Under the previous Government, noble Lords may recall that our penultimate Prime Minister was a great fan of AI and made great play of trying to attract interest in AI, positioning the United Kingdom as potentially a major base of the AI sector outside the United States. The new Government have continued that theme and recognised AI as a core element in one of their many missions for growth. However, if we look at where the United States is coming from, we see that its position is very clear, and it is deeply uncomfortable for us. Vice-President Vance said on 11 February at the Artificial Intelligence Action Summit in Paris that
“with the president’s recent executive order on AI, we’re developing an AI Action Plan that avoids an overly precautionary regulatory regime while ensuring that all Americans benefit from the technology and its transformative potential … Now, we invite your countries to work with us and to follow that model if it makes sense for your nations. However, the Trump Administration is troubled by reports that some foreign governments are considering tightening the screws on U.S. tech companies with international footprints. Now, America cannot and will not accept that, and we think it’s a terrible mistake not just for the United States of America but for your own countries”.
What could be clearer than that?
OpenAI, one of the major companies involved in this, says that America needs a global strategy that adopts American AI systems, not anybody else’s, and a copyright strategy that protects
“the rights and interests of content creators”,
and preserves
“American AI models’ ability to learn from copyrighted material”.
After the consultation in this country with our Government, it said:
“The UK has a rare opportunity to cement itself”,
—it makes one think of being in cement under Brooklyn Bridge—
“as the AI capital of Europe by making choices that avoid policy uncertainty, foster innovation, and drive economic growth”,
calling for a broad copyright exemption.
Lastly, Google said that rights holders can already effectively exercise “choice and control”, but suggested those who opt out of AI training would not necessarily have a right to remuneration if they still appeared on a model’s training data—so, basically, “We’ve stolen it, but too bad”. It further said that
“we believe training on the open web must be free”,
and it warned that
“excessive transparency requirements … could hinder AI development and impact the UK’s competitiveness in the space”.
This is the very uncomfortable dilemma we are in. I would welcome transparency from His Majesty’s Government about the fact that we are in an uncomfortable place and that we all need to work together to find a solution that is in the best interests of our country and of our creative sector. We obviously need to come to an accommodation with the United States of America, but on the basis of the last two months since “Freedom Day”, one day after April Fools’ Day, we are in dangerous territory. We just need to be honest with one another.