Part of 1. Questions to the First Minister – in the Senedd at 2:28 pm on 13 June 2023.
Mark Drakeford
Labour
2:28,
13 June 2023
Llywydd, Jack Sargeant makes a series of very important points. If the debate on AI has been slow to emerge, it has certainly caught fire in more recent weeks. This is an area where I believe that UK-wide regulation has significant advantages, and the Welsh Government will play our part in the consultation that the UK Government is currently carrying out on AI regulation. But we will do it in the way that Jack Sargeant has suggested, Llywydd—we will do it in a spirit of social partnership. We will make sure that our response draws on the views of the wider private and public sector in Wales. We know that our trade union colleagues have done some very important work into the impact of AI in the workplace. We will also draw, Llywydd, on the close relationship that we have with the Centre for Data, Ethics and Innovation, because this is an area where I think being sure that we do not treat it simply as a technological issue, but that we are alert to the ethical issues that stand alongside it, is very important in order to make sure that the advantages can be harvested and that the rights of individuals are also properly protected. That will be the focus of our contribution to the consultation, and then I hope that, instead of playing catch-up, as Jack Sargeant has said, we will have a regulatory regime in place that has the public interest at its core, despite the fact that we are often dealing here with very powerful and transnational companies.
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