Human rights committee calls for new AI safety law

A cross-party group of MPs and peers is calling for a new AI Bill to address the threats AI poses to human rights.

In a report, the Joint Committee on Human Rights (JCHR) said the existing regulatory and legal framework is inadequate, and that new legislation should be introduced.

A single, independent AI oversight body should be established on a statutory basis, acting as the central point of contact for raising concerns about the use of AI, overseeing AI firms and monitoring harms and risks. It should have strong powers to hold AI providers to account, including setting codes of practice, transparency requirements and the power to impose sanctions.

"AI is heralded as an unprecedented era of technological development with the potential to transform our lives for better or for worse," said JCHR chair Alex Sobel.

"It is moving with such speed and complexity that its impact is hard to accurately predict. What is clear is that at present we are unprepared to deal with its consequences, however potentially dire they may be."

Currently, the committee said that model developers engage with the AI Security Institute on a voluntary basis, with the institute having no statutory power. As a result, regulators have no powers to test and evaluate AI systems before they are released, or to prevent their release if they are considered to pose unacceptable risks.

Meanwhile, the current legal framework relies on harm-specific and sector-specific legislation, failing to address preventable human rights risks.

"Nowhere in the world, including the UK, has a current legislative and regulatory approach to AI that is fit for purpose," said Sobel. "New legislation is needed to establish a comprehensive set of protections that deal with the entire AI supply chain and its lifecycle."

A new bill, said the committee, should distinguish between low-risk AI systems, which should be subject to fewer and less demanding legal requirements, and higher-risk AI systems and models, which should have more demanding obligations.

Some uses of AI, said the committee, should be banned altogether, because they're incompatible with human rights: subliminal techniques and inappropriate use of profiling or biometric data, for example. There should be a public consultation over the detail of what is prohibited.

All stages of the AI lifecycle should be addressed, said the JCHR, with the entire supply chain required to carry out due diligence to prevent an unacceptable risk to human rights when designing, developing or deploying AI systems. These requirements should be graded based on their role in the supply chain and the seriousness of the risk they represent.

Transparency should be improved across the AI lifecycle, with AI systems that can have significant impacts on individuals, groups and communities required to state when AI systems are being used and how.

And there needs to be greater clarity in data protection law to ensure these safeguards operate effectively in practice, with robust protections against the misuse of automated decision-making.

"Today's report from the Joint Committee on Human Rights gives further support to those making the argument that the UK's current patchwork of sector-specific regulators is struggling to keep pace with AI's risks to fundamental rights," said Sophie Sheldon, partner at international law firm Simmons & Simmons.

"Whether government now makes moves toward a single statutory oversight body and a more EU AI Act-style framework, or continues refining the cross-sector approach, the pressure for a single legislative answer is growing."

The report comes after recent warnings from AI firms that the pace of development needs to be slowed. Over the weekend, Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei said he was worried that AIs could soon be capable of becoming a swarm that could take over the entire internet; Elon Musk and OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman have expressed similar concerns.