We are currently in Committee Stage of the Financial Services and Markets Bill in the House of Lords – examining this important legislation clause by clause, line by line, debating the principles, highlighting concerns and suggesting changes. This week (21st March 2023) I introduced four amendments. The first, amendment 218, would require the Government to publish plans for a digital ID. A further two amendments would require firms operating in financial services to have a designated AI officer and to ensure that their use of AI is ethical and in line with Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation (CDEI) guidance.
When I introduced the amendments in the House of Lords I referred to some statistics set out in a Bank of England report ‘Machine learning in UK financial services | Bank of England‘. Published in October last year the report found that 72% of financial services businesses are already using AI, none of them perceive this to be in anyway risky and over half of them said they were constrained by the regulators approach.
I set out that information as background and I hope that, like me, those survey responses make you more than a little concerned about precisely how AI and ML is being deployed. I am confident that a greater focus on ensuring the ethical use of AI – and making sure it is prioritized by appointing an AI officer would be a step towards greater oversight and accountability for this most powerful of new technologies.
The full text of both amendments is set out below:
Amendment 220. Insert the following new Clause—
“Ethical use of artificial intelligence by companies in the financial sector
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations provide that companies operating in the financial services sector who make use of artificial intelligence must ensure its use is in line with guidance published by the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation.
(2) Regulations under subsection
(1) are subject to the affirmative procedure.”
Amendment 221. Insert the following new Clause—
“Designated artificial intelligence officer
(1) The Secretary of State must by regulations provide that companies operating in the financial services sector who use artificial intelligence (“AI”) must have a designated AI officer.
(2) The AI officer under subsection (1) has responsibility for ensuring the— (a) safe, (b) ethical, (c) unbiased, and (d) non-discriminatory use of AI.
(3) The AI officer under subsection (1) also has responsibility to ensure that data used in any AI technology is unbiased.
(4) Regulations under this section are subject to the affirmative procedure.”
A 2020 update to our House of Lords AI Select Committee work concluded that sector-specific regulators were better placed to identify gaps in regulation, and to learn about AI and apply it to their sectors. This recommendation underpinned these proposed AI amendments to the Financial Services and Markets Bill.
In an op-ed published this week, Bill Gates himself points out that “market forces won’t naturally produce AI products and services that help the poorest. The opposite is more likely.” To ensure that AI operates in the public interest, to reduce inequality, to address some of the most intractable problems facing us today the Government must do more, the public and private sector must do more, we all must do more. AI has such potential, we all must ensure that potential translates into positive opportunities, positive outcomes and a positive future alongside AI for us all.