UK to avoid fixed rules for AI in favor of contextspecific guidance

News Summary

  • Ouch.The five principles the government wants to guide the use of AI — or, specifically, that existing regulators “should consider to best facilitate the safe and innovative use of AI in the industries they monitor” — are:All of which sound like fine words indeed.
  • The U.K. isn’t going to be setting hard rules for AI any time soon.Today, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published a white paper setting out the government’s preference for a light-touch approach to regulating artificial intelligence.
  • But evidently there won’t be a hard legal requirement to actually use it.The government says its approach to AI will focus on “regulating the use, not the technology” — ergo, there won’t be any rules or risk levels assigned to entire sectors or technologies.
  • For example, the principle of honesty is a value that guides behavior in a variety of situations, such as being truthful in communication, respecting others’ property, and fulfilling obligations.In summary, rules are specific and inflexible instructions while principles are broad and flexible values that guide behavior.
  • It also suggests regulators may need to publish joint guidance focused on AI use cases that cross multiple regulatory remits.
  • Because if something does go wrong they’ll be forced to wait for the government to make parliamentary time available to actually pass some safety rules.
The UK isnt going to be setting hard rules for AI any time soon.Today, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) published a white paper setting out the governments preference [+17787 chars]