Throughout the recent political turmoil in Downing Street, the civil service has continued to develop policy on artificial intelligence, including by developing its 2021 National AI Strategy through a more detailed policy paper (titled ‘Establishing a pro-innovation approach to regulating AI’) that gives further guidance about the intended approach. This policy paper is of domestic and international importance, as the new Prime Minister Rishi Sunak looks to capitalise on the UK’s AI potential at a time when governments worldwide grapple with how to regulate the emerging technology. Notably, the tone of the paper, as introduced by then-ministers Nadine Dorres and Kwasi Kwarteng, emphasises a ‘proportionate, light-touch and forward-looking’ attitude that looks to ‘unleash growth and innovation’ in the field. The framing of an …

In 2002, the Magna Science Centre in South Yorkshire witnessed a surprising event: a two foot tall robot, Gaak, escaped from a gladiatorial experiment with learning robots.  The experiment, part of the “Living Robots” project, simulated a predator and pray scenario where some robots searched for food (prey) and others hunted for them (predators).  Gaak, a predator, was left unattended for fifteen minutes and, in that time, managed to find and navigate along a barrier, find a gap, move through it and continue across a car park to the M1 motorway. Gaak was found rather quickly when a motorist almost collided with it.  This story of robot liberation helps us to understand a simple fact about learning machines: they are unpredictable.   …