Principles and power: the ODI members’ roundtable on the AI White Paper

To inform our response to the government’s White Paper, AI regulation: a pro-innovation approach, the ODI hosted a virtual roundtable for its members on Tuesday 13 June 2023. The ODI’s full response to the White Paper is here and we’ve written a blog summarising our thoughts on the White Paper here.

Attendees from a range of organisations including regulators, big tech, small tech, SMEs and civil society groups participated in the event, where we were able to gather a range of insights and reactions to the government’s approach, as well as ideas of missed opportunities, and concerns about risks that had been overlooked. We based the different sessions of the roundtable on several - though not all - of the questions from the consultation, as well as giving space for more general reflections.

There is a full summary of the discussion below, but the key points are as follows:

• There was an even spread of views on whether the government’s general approach (principles-based, contextual, sector-specific, no overarching regulator) was the right one. Scepticism focused on regulatory complexity, confusion and a lack of regulation, a lack of new powers and a lack of focus on the data powering AI models; more positive comments thought focusing on the use of AI in context in particular sectors was sensible, but also worried about coordination
• There was broad support for government’s proposed principles (safety, security and robustness; transparency and explainability; fairness; accountability and governance; contestability and redress), though people wondered where considerations about data should fit. They also felt real-world harms to people and society were being missed, including environmental harms and risks to marginalised groups, as was the speed of change and the international dimension to debates about AI.
• Members thought the government approach broadly struck the right balance between innovation and risk, though there were worries that future-proofing seems impossible and not enough has been learned from the last few decades of digital growth, and that there isn’t enough certainty (around direction, guardrails and legitimacy) provided for businesses to innovate.

Read the full summary here

Contributions were made to this blog by Resham Kotecha, Head of Policy at the ODI.