The UK government has backed an approach to regulating AI that is “context-based” and has rejected creating “unnecessary blanket rules” that apply to the technology in general, according to its response to consultation in its AI Regulation White Paper. 

In practice, the industry will continue to regulate AI on a sector-based approach. The government said that its white paper (published in March 2023) had set out five core principles that should underpin the development of responsible AI. Those principles included safety, transparency and fairness.

Strong support

“Our context-based framework received strong support from stakeholders across society and we have acted quickly to implement it,” Michelle Donelan, Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, said. “We are pleased that a number of regulators are already taking action in line with our proposed approach, from the Competition and Market Authority’s review of foundation models to the updated guidance on data protection and AI by the Information Commissioner’s Office.”

The principles will be implemented on a non-statutory basis for now – but the government retained the right to review its approach as necessary. A central, oversight function based at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is expected to ensure the UK’s approach is coherent and it will act to address any regulatory gaps.

Copyright remains unaddressed

In February, the House of Lords issued its report Large language models and generative AI. Since such algorithms sweep up swaths of content from the internet indiscriminately, copyright issues needed to be addressed, the report said.

“LLMs rely on ingesting massive datasets to work properly but that does not mean they should be able to use any material they can find without permission or paying rightsholders for the privilege. This is an issue the Government can get a grip of quickly and it should do so,” it said.

The government’s response to its white paper on regulation has not addressed this issue head on. “It may well be for the courts to determine the copyright position in the short term, although this may not be to the liking of those investing in AI development,” said the law firm Herbert, Smith, Freehills.