AI-gatha Christie: What Clues Does The AI Policy Paper Provide About The Future For Regulation Of AI In The UK?

By: Coran Darling, Gareth Stokes & Lisa Urwin (Technology’s Leading Edge/DLA Piper)

As AI intersects into ever more areas of everyday life, legislators across the world are increasingly focused on ensuring that intersection does not become unwelcome intrusion. In recent months the EU has taken centre stage with the release of drafts of its proposed EU AI regulation (the “EU Regulation”). On the other side of the Atlantic, the US Federal Trade Commission (the “FTC”) has announced its intent to hold companies using discriminatory algorithms accountable under its existing authority. New proposals are gaining traction in US Congress that would formalise such requirements and grant the FTC jurisdiction to oversee and enforce penalties for violations.

Until recently, there were not many specific hints as to the approach that the UK might take to regulating AI, the UK having published only high level documents such as the National AI Strategy released in September 2021. However, on 18 July 2022 the UK Government published a Policy Paper: ‘Establishing a pro-innovative approach the regulating AI’ (the “Policy Paper”) alongside its AI Action Plan. For the detectives among us waiting in anticipation for the publication of the AI White Paper that the UK Government will release later this year (the “White Paper”), the Policy Paper at last offers some tangible clues about the future regulation of AI in the UK.

As a certain fictional Belgian detective might ask: can we use our ‘little grey cells’ to work out how intellect residing in ‘little silicon cells’ will be regulated in the near future?

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