Government to review AI potential

The government has asked regulators, including the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA), to think about how the development and deployment of AI can be supported against five overarching principles: safety, security and robustness; appropriate transparency and explainability; fairness; accountability and governance; and contestability and redress.

The review seeks to understand how foundation models are developing and produce an assessment of the conditions and principles that will best guide the development of foundation models and their use in the future.

This initial review will:

examine how the competitive markets for foundation models and their use could evolve
explore what opportunities and risks these scenarios could bring for competition and consumer protection
produce guiding principles to support competition and protect consumers as AI foundation models develop

The development of AI touches upon a number of important issues, including safety, security, copyright, privacy, and human rights, as well as the ways markets work. Many of these issues are being considered by government or other regulators, so this initial review will focus on the questions the CMA is best placed to address − what are the likely implications of the development of AI foundation models for competition and consumer protection?

”AI has burst into the public consciousness over the past few months but has been on our radar for some time,” says CMA chief executive Sarah Cardell, “it’s a technology developing at speed and has the potential to transform the way businesses compete as well as drive substantial economic growth.@

It’s crucial that the potential benefits of this transformative technology are readily accessible to UK businesses and consumers while people remain protected from issues like false or misleading information. Our goal is to help this new, rapidly scaling technology develop in ways that ensure open, competitive markets and effective consumer protection.

The CMA is seeking views and evidence from stakeholders and welcomes submissions by 2 June 2023. The CMA encourages interested parties to respond and be proactive in identifying relevant evidence.

Following evidence gathering and analysis, the CMA will publish a report which sets out its findings in September 2023.

All updates on the CMA’s work in this area can be found on the artificial intelligence case page.