AI regulation needed to support innovation, says DMA

The DMA’s call for safeguards comes ahead of the UK’s AI Safety Summit, which will run from 1st November to 2nd November, and follows research showing that a lack of confidence in safeguards was the reason why 43% of SMEs do not plan to innovate with AI.

The findings are from the DMA report Data Horizons: How UK SMEs and Consumers View the Future of Privacy Regulation and is based on a nationally representative online survey of 1,002 respondents carried out between June and July 2023 and 101 SME decision makers.

The research also found that 76% of SME business owners believe the UK government should introduce regulation to mitigate the ethical risks of AI.

Of those SMEs planning to use with AI within the next year, 40% believe current regulation does not offer sufficient safeguards for its development while 17% believe current regulation is sufficient.

The research found that 17% of consumers and 28% of SME owners believed the main benefit of AI would be improving training and development, but only 15% of SME owners felt AI would boost the economy.

The main concern consumers had about AI is job reductions ( 37%), privacy and information ( 34%), societal detriment ( 27%) and national security ( 24%) with 20% having no concerns around AI.

The survey also found that 66% of consumers had high confidence in UK regulatory bodies’ ability to keep up with emerging technology.

Rachel Aldighieri, managing director at the DMA, said: “The inaugural Global AI Summit has laid the foundations for the UK to become a pioneer in how to drive responsible AI innovation.

“To achieve this, industry leaders and government must first work together to build industry ethical frameworks founded on core values such as accountability, transparency and public safety and trust to ensure AI’s development remains a force for good and businesses become more confident to innovate in this space.”