One of the best things about hosting the Giant Robots podcast is that I get to spend time talking to people that might otherwise pass me by. It’s an opportunity to turn casual small talk into meaningful conversation. After meeting Lord Chris Holmes at the DigiGov Expo in 2024, where I was collecting free merch attending on behalf of thoughtbot, I felt I wanted to dig deeper into our brief chat about AI.
It only took a year or two but it was a privilege to sit down with Lord Chris Holmes, a member of the UK House of Lords and a former Paralympic swimmer.
Much has changed across the AI landscape since we first met which made our conversation even more pertinent. Lord Holmes is an active voice in the UK’s conversations around artificial intelligence regulation and digital policy. In Parliament, he has focused heavily on technology and inclusion, including introducing a Private Member’s Bill on AI regulation.
It’s been nearly two months since our conversation which has given me some time to reflect.
We can’t do nothing
The UK is desperately in need of some AI legislation
This still rings true for me. I am sometimes surprised at the lack of conversation or guidance on such a society-shifting tool as AI. In my opinion, I feel like this is one of the major roles of government, to have a good overview of the big picture. What does society look like? Where is it heading? And what does it mean?
There’s been an unfortunate lack of political will when it comes to artificial intelligence in the UK. It’s not a party political point because it was the previous government as much as it was this government. It’s largely been a wait-and-see approach.
I find this slightly infuriating because I feel like these are the conversations that many of us are having around the country.
So we’re left suboptimal, confusing, opaque, abandoned…
For economic, for social, for psychological reasons, it can’t be allowed to continue. That’s the approach from our UK government.
Pragmatic Approach
I found Lord Holmes approach incredibly pragmatic and reasonable. This is by no means a conversation about anti-AI or heavy regulation.
Thus, good for investor, for innovator, for consumer, for customer, for creative, good for the country, and really to wrestle to the ground once and for all, that tedious falsehood that recurs time and again, that you can either have regulation or innovation, you can’t have both. You can, and in fact, it’s the role of parliamentarians and regulators to consider all of these factors, so we can bring about pro-innovation, pro-consumer protection, pro-investor, pro-citizen, pro-creative regulation legislation.
This is not about stifling growth or heavy-handed regulation, and it seems to me that the key to this is a principle based approach that Lord Holmes described, which removes the need for micromanagement.
Critical to take a principles based rather than a prescriptive approach, I think. It’s tempting always to be prescriptive, to think, if we can write everything down to the last dot and comma and spell it out, that will be the best control we can have.
But unfortunately, though beguilingly appealing, it’s an unfortunate trap which traps us at that moment in time, because we don’t live in a static society, technology, economy, polity. None of these things are static. But to have a principles-based approach, which can adapt, develop and be agile through time, through technologies.
We know how to do this. We have the great good fortune of common law, which is well constructed and understood in that sort of approach. So we can.
It’s worth reading the AI Regulation Report to get a better understanding of these principles.
We have agency
I do sometimes find myself feeling a sense of fatalism about where this technology might be taking us. I think it would be unnatural not to be concerned at times, when the narrative indicates abrupt change. However, it was somewhat reassuring to be reminded that we are not just passengers in this societal journey.
We spoke about some of the lack of guidance we felt around social media as a comparison.
What you set out there about social media is well observed. But here’s the thing. None of that was inevitable.
And none of that had anything to do with the technology per se. It was programmed, constructed, operationalized and monetized to do what it now does. Technology didn’t do that.
Humans determined to structure it in that way. Horrific, but not inevitable. Not inevitable at all, and the same with AI.
Looking forward with optimism
I still feel a sense of optimism following our conversation. I love the idea that we can be a part of shaping this technology and removing the existential threat perception that it sometimes brings.
We have a stunning opportunity to make a success of these technologies, but it’s down to all of us playing our part.
So much so that we have to take responsibility as well.
If it goes wrong, that won’t be a failure of the technology.
That will be a failure of us by not human leading, by everyone not playing their part.
I highly recommend taking a listen to the full conversation and if you live in the UK and would like to discuss the regulation of AI with Lord Holmes, you can connect with him via LinkedIn.