The party intends to substitute a voluntary agreement with a statutory regime “to understand the direction.”
Labour plans to mandate AI firms to share road test results, citing regulatory and political failures in controlling social media platforms. The party aims to replace a voluntary testing agreement with a statutory regime, compelling AI companies to share test data with officials. Peter Kyle, the shadow technology secretary, highlighted the need for legislative and regulatory adaptation, ensuring AI is handled more effectively than social media. He emphasized the necessity for tech firms to be transparent, especially in light of Brianna Ghey’s murder, proposing stricter openness requirements under a Labour government.
“We will transition from a voluntary code to a statutory code,” Kyle stated on BBC One’s Sunday with Laura Kuenssberg. “Companies involved in such research and development will be required to disclose all test data and objectives, providing transparency on the technology’s trajectory.”
At the inaugural global AI safety summit in November, Rishi Sunak secured a voluntary agreement with leading AI firms, such as Google and OpenAI (the developer of ChatGPT), to collaborate on testing advanced AI models both before and after deployment. Under Labour’s proposals, AI companies would be required by law to inform the government if they intend to develop AI systems exceeding a certain level of capability, and they would be mandated to conduct safety tests under “independent oversight.”
The AI summit’s testing agreement received support from the EU and 10 countries, including the US, UK, Japan, France, and Germany. Tech giants committed to testing their models include Google, OpenAI, Amazon, Microsoft, and Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta.
Kyle, currently in the US to meet with Washington lawmakers and tech executives, emphasized that the test results would support the UK AI Safety Institute in independently scrutinizing advancements in artificial intelligence. He stressed the importance of ensuring the safe development of technology that will significantly impact workplaces, societies, and cultures.
