Contribution
My Lords, I am conscious that I might be accused of preferring quill and pen than the latest technology in Amendment 66. In recognising how artificial intelligence is emerging, I thought I would put down a blunt amendment to allow us at least to have a debate. Inevitably, in a variety of legal and health situations, we will start to see artificial intelligence being used routinely. There was a recent legal ruling in which it turns out a judge had completely relied on AI and gave a completely inaccurate ruling based on it. This is not simply about what would be considered by medical practitioners.
I worry about judgment. We have already heard, reasonably, that trying to predict when somebody will pass away due to a terminal illness involves a bit of science but is largely an art. Perhaps I am being ungenerous in that regard. Certainly, in the DWP, we moved accelerated access to benefits from a six-month consideration to 12 months simply because, routinely, the NHS does not require its practitioners to assess six months; it is much more accurate at assessing 12 months. It is interesting that this Bill is focused on six months when, routinely, the NHS does not use that period. However, I am diverting slightly from the point of artificial intelligence.
I was somewhat interested in the previous debate, because there seemed to be a majority—I will not say a consensus—who felt that face to face was an important part of this happening in practice. But there are still a significant number of people who seem happy that we use a variety of technology for some of the interactions.
Forgive me for fast forwarding, but I see this whole issue becoming pretty routine. What I want to avoid is outsourcing. It strikes me how much people rely on Wikipedia and think that they are actually dealing with the Encyclopaedia Britannica, even though a lot of what is on Wikipedia is a complete load of garbage. What is even more worrying is that many of the AI mechanisms use sources such as Wikipedia, or simply put two and two together and come up with 22. I saw this, not that long ago, when I was trying to find something from when I had been on the Treasury Committee and interrogated the FCA about something. The first thing that came out of ChatGPT was that, somehow, I had become a non-executive director of the FCA—if only. That certainly was not the case. I am concerned that an overreliance on AI might start to happen in this regard.
I want to avoid a world of chatbots that removes the human element. That is why I keep coming back to the themes of face to face, being in this country and this having a personal element. I am conscious that the NHS and other practitioners, including legal practitioners, will continue to evolve—I am not stuck in some dinosaur age—but I feel that the issues that those of us concerned about the Bill have will continue. We completely understand why people might want to do this, but we want to make sure that the safeguards, particularly around coercion, are as safe as possible. That is why I have raised for debate the consideration of whether, as a matter of principle, artificial intelligence should not be used in the deployment of the future Act.
As I said, there may be evolution in medicine; we see that that is already happening. I do not know to what extent the Government have confidence in the use of AI in the diagnosis of lifespans. A new evolution in government is that AI is now starting to handle consultations. That might get tested in court at some point, to see whether it is a meaningful way to handle consultations—it is certainly a cost-efficient way to do so. My point is that, according to the Wednesbury rule, there is supposed to be proper consultation, not just a tick-box exercise.
I will not dwell on this, but I would be very interested to hear, from not only the sponsor but the Government, their consideration of artificial intelligence in relation to the practicality and operability of the Bill if it were to become law. I beg to move.