Cambridge Analytica scandal 'highlights need for AI regulation'

Britain needs to lead the way on artificial intelligence regulation, in order to prevent companies such as Cambridge Analytica setting precedents for dangerous and unethical use of the technology, the head of the House of Lords select committee on AI has warned. The Cambridge Analytica scandal, Lord Clement-Jones said, reinforced the committee's findings, released on Monday in the report "AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?" "These principles do come to life a little bit when you think about the Cambridge Analytica situation," he told the Guardian. "Whether or not the data analytics they carried out was actually using AI … It gives an example of where it's important that we do have strong intelligibility of what the hell is going on with our data." Clement-Jones added: "With the whole business in [the US] Congress and Cambridge Analytica, the political climate in the west now is much riper in terms of people agreeing to … a more public response to the ethics and so on involved. It isn't just going to be left to Silicon Valley to decide the principles."