My Lords, in moving Amendment 108 I will speak also to Amendment 109 in my name and, in doing so, I declare my technology interests as set out in the register. The purpose of both amendments is predicated on the fundamental truth that AI is already extraordinarily powerful and pervasive across our financial services, impacting so many elements of people’s experience and ability to access and avail themselves of financial services. If AI is to human intellect what steam was to human strength, we see the extent of the issue.
In Committee, the Minister perhaps rightly suggested that it would be wrong from a policy perspective to have an AI reporting officer in financial services and not consider this across the whole of the economy. If so, will my noble friend take back to the Treasury the need to work across departments—with the Business Department and the newly formed DSIT—to consider an approach where an AI-responsible officer on the boards of all companies would be considered, for the benefit of all those involved in the provision of those services; in this context, financial services? Perhaps this would be a good topic to work up for the AI summit which will be taking place in London later this year. Similarly, the UK has an extraordinary opportunity to be a leader in ethical AI, and I ask my noble friend whether it would make sense, with colleagues across government, to expand the specificity of these amendments in financial services and look at how they might be implemented, coming off the back of the AI summit in the autumn.
The Bill provides an opportunity to raise the whole question of AI. I bring these amendments to do just that. I believe that it would make a real difference to financial services—consumers, businesses and regulators alike—if these amendments were considered in that context, but I completely accept that there is a broader context and would welcome my noble friend’s comments on both the specific and the broader context. I beg to move.