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...

At the core of the committee’s recommendations are five ethical principles which, it says, should be applied across sectors, nationally and internationally:

• Artificial intelligence should be developed for the common good and benefit of humanity.
• Artificial intelligence should operate on principles of intelligibility and fairness.
• Artificial intelligence should not be used to diminish the data rights or privacy of individuals, families or communities.
• All citizens should have the right to be educated to enable them to flourish mentally, emotionally and economically alongside artificial intelligence.
• The autonomous power to hurt, destroy or deceive human beings should never be vested in artificial intelligence.

The goal is not to write the principles directly into legislation [...] but rather to have them as a broad guiding beacon for AI regulation...

[T]he committee has identified a number of threats that mismanagement of AI could bring to Britain. One concern is of the creation of “data monopolies”... [refers to Facebook, Google and Tencent]