Britain will write laws for AI – Hi-Tech – Kommersant

The UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has published its proposals for systemic regulation of the latest artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. The British government believes that the timely development of legislation will increase public confidence in the booming AI industry and give a new impetus to the country’s economic development.

IN published Today in the White Paper on AI, which explains the principles of government policy in this area, the UK Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) states that “AI regulation aims to build public confidence in the latest technologies. The regulation will make it easier for businesses to adopt these technologies, allowing them to innovate and create new jobs.”

The ministry believes that this will allow “to take advantage of AI, which is one of the main technologies of the near future.” It is noted that there are already about 50 thousand people working in the fields related to AI in Britain, and this market brought the British economy £ 3.7 billion last year alone. The government suggests using the services of independent experts in the field of AI to understand how a country can take advantage of new technologies such as ChatGPT. It is also proposed to create a closed pilot project, during which models of the practical application of AI legislation for business will be developed.

At one time, it was the UK that was one of the countries that, together with the USA, the EU, Japan, Canada and some others, for the first time applied a systematic approach to regulation the cryptocurrency market, while many other countries, mainly developing ones, either did not recognize cryptocurrencies as such, or called for simply banning them.

The plan to create regulations for AI involves the use of five basic principles:

• safety: AI programs and applications must operate safely and take into account all possible risks;
• transparency and accessibility: organizations developing and hosting AI should be available for communication and, if necessary, explain in an accessible way how their systems work, what risks may be and how they are taken into account;
• honesty and fairness: AI must be used in accordance with existing UK laws, including the Equality Act 2020, without prejudice or discrimination against anyone, both individuals and businesses;
• accountability and responsibility: it is necessary to take measures to introduce reasonable control over how AI is used, and responsibility for possible consequences;
• Possibility of litigation and correction of errors: people should have clear and accessible ways to challenge possible harmful consequences or decisions generated by AI.

The publication of the document means that now the relevant regulators in the UK have 12 months to create practical guidance for the development of the relevant bill – taking into account the basic principles set out in the White Paper, and all possible risks of regulation. Then consideration of these measures will be submitted to the country’s parliament and for public discussion.

The rapid development of next-generation AI, including neural networks like ChatGPT, has recently caused a lot of discussion. Some experts see it threat jobs and increased risks fraudothers believe that with a competent approach, new technologies stimulate economy and labor market.

Yesterday, the non-profit public organization Future of Life published an open letter, which called for “a pause of at least six months” in the introduction of new AI systems that are superior in power to ChatGPT-4. The authors of the letter, which includes more than a thousand scientists, experts and businessmen, including Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Elon Musk, Pinterest co-founder Evan Sharp and others, believe that “the rapid development of artificial intelligence, which can already successfully compete with humans, poses risks to society and humanity.”

The authors of the letter urged the authorities of the countries to also consider the possibility of a moratorium on the development of new, more powerful systems of generative AI.

“This pause should be used to jointly develop a set of security protocols for advanced AI technologies and a system for controlling them. The pause does not mean that work on AI systems should be suspended – we only call for a temporary slowdown in the unpredictable and potentially dangerous race to bring new, increasingly powerful AI models to the market, ”the open letter says.

Evgeniy Khvostik