Commissioner Silkie Carlo reflects on what happened during Party Conferences when it was time to discuss Artificial Intelligence from a political and policy perspective.

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The future of tech and AI was a notable theme at Labour Party Conference this year - more than the other parties’, though it emerged more on the fringes than the main stage.

On the main stage, Science and Tech Secretary Peter Kyle gave his speech through the lens of economic growth, but cited a range of topics including AI, addressing digital exclusion, widening full fibre internet connectivity; employment opportunities from new data-driven technologies; fully implementing the Online Safety Act; creating a digital centre of government, and spreading AI and digital technologies across the NHS, education, employment and public services.

Kyle’s speech was optimistically framed (“For progressives, our choice is to drive this change, whilst harnessing its immense power for the good of all”). He committed to making the AI Safety Institute a statutory body, but posited regulation as something to consider only when “essential”.

“I totally understand the concerns people have about the impact of these changes on their jobs, children, communities, and the whole of society.

“Our task is to recognise these concerns: mitigate where possible; upskill where necessary; reskill where appropriate; and regulate when essential.”

However, he then seemed to draw comparisons between those concerns and the Luddites and anti-vaccination campaigns of the 19th Century, concluding, arguably naively, that new technologies “need not be a threat, any more than the train or the tractor.”

Meanwhile, Labour Party Conference was abuzz with AI and tech events on the fringes – the Startup Coalition had a permanent “hub”, hosting countless panels including collaborations with Labour Digital and Meta. Zoom, Coinbase, Cityfibre, Labour Together, the think tank Reform, Labour Women in Tech, Uber and many others were on the tech panel circuit, though broadly matching the main stage theme of “unlocking growth” and productivity.

However, Big Brother Watch hosted a fringe event on “Workers’ Rights, AI and Surveillance” with speakers including vice chair of the APPG on AI Dawn Butler MP, CEO of the Institute for the Future of Work Anna Thomas OBE, and union representatives. At the event, we launched our new report Bossware: the dangers of high-tech worker surveillance and how to stop them, charting the emergence of AI and other software applications used to crank up productivity goals, monitor workers during and outside of work, inform disciplinaries, process workers’ biometrics, and expand granular workplace monitoring from GPS trackers to desk, laptop, browsing and keystroke monitoring.

Whilst the Liberal Democrats have some of the most developed policies on technology, particularly regulation – for example, comprehensive policies for a Digital Bill of Rights and to ban live facial recognition surveillance – the conference was broadly focused on the social and economic policies that the party pursued during the election. The only event on technology and rights was Big Brother Watch’s fringe event on “Protecting civil liberties in the digital age” with Alistair Carmichael MP and Tom Morrison MP, which drew a packed room and a lively discussion among members willing the party to re-assert its position as the party of rights and liberty.

The Conservative Party conference had a smattering of growth-and-tech-related fringe events within the secure zone, aside from Big Brother Watch’s fringe event on the rights and the future of the Conservative Party. Speakers included David Davis MP who gave an impassioned defence of the right to privacy in the age of big data and AI, as well as the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) which protects it in law; and the head of PopCon, who drew on the growing importance of data rights as a vital aspect of individual rights. On the main stage, leadership candidates battled over whether to legally protect rights at all, with leaving the ECHR emerging as a major leadership theme.

What next? Peter Kyle confirmed at Labour Conference that an AI Bill is in the pipeline – despite its omission from the King’s Speech – but as suggested by earlier statements, it will likely focus on business and growth, and insofar as regulation is concerned is likely to focus on frontier AI, which poses some of the most remote and hypothetical (though serious) threats of AI. For many experts and those in sectors already experiencing or addressing the multitude of AI related harms across society, this would be a missed opportunity to introduce more comprehensive EU-style legislation like the EU AI Act, and introduce some broader guardrails to the proliferation of AI in our everyday lives.

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Silkie Carlo, Big Brother Watch and AIFCS Commissioner

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