David Chaplin, editor of Computers & Law, reflects on the recent Annual AI conference that looked at the challenges of AI implementation through the eyes of business
A case study stitched together the presentations at the annual SCL AI conference hosted at the HSFK offices a couple of weeks ago. It was all about how lawyers might advise a fictional AI / robot start-up restaurant specialising in personalised wraps – WraptureAI. An AI generated fake infomercial shown to whet the delegates’ appetites promised personalised wraps matching a customer’s tastes, allergies and even emotional mood. These bespoke wraps would be collated by robot chefs, a feature boosted as all part of the entertainment.
So what could possibly go wrong? Using the case study as a springboard for a series of absorbing discussions, quite a lot it seems and some of it surprising, highlighting the key roles lawyers have to play in navigating the risks. With a keynote, fireside chat and a flash talk served up on the side, what were the takeaways from the day?
The copyright and creatives clash is a bit of a sideshow for the LLM providers
Before we got to the case study, Baroness Beeban Kidron OBE provided a keynote on copyright and AI. She is currently fighting the corner for creatives in the House of Lords and is opposed to the Government’s moves to make copyright opt-out, framing it as a human right by virtue of the various Acts and the Berne Convention. However she was candid enough to admit that while the theft of copyrighted works is a live and current concern the volume of data is a fraction of that the AI businesses are using to train models. Many tech insiders have been in touch with her to voice their concern that while they are happy to pay for a copy of Moby Dick (as long as it’s not too much trouble) having to license the exponentially much larger datasets of human behaviour such as social media posts and fitness data would not be best avoided.
Boards risk over dependence on AI
A heavy weight panel of contributors then tackled the issues that may be keeping board members awake at night. If they are awake and gazing at the sky at night then the thoughts of Lord Rees, the renowned astronomer may seem apposite. As recounted by his fellow member of the Lords, Lord Tim Clement-Jones OBE, the astronomer peer thinks our biggest risk is that AI may not live up to the hype, but we will have bet the farm on it.
We should also remember the global perspective and differing cultural attitudes. Hotels in China are already using robot assistants so what may seem unusual in one country maybe the norm in another.
Lawyers are used to being the smartest person in the room. They may not be for much longer
Henry Goodwin and Professor Dan Hunter used a fireside chat format to bandy around some ideas about what kind of lawyers will need to be recruited now that Agentic AI is on the cusp of outperforming the human. The broad view they expounded was that law firms will require drone operators – experts in prompting AI to do the work – not the glamorous fighter pilot lawyers are now (or perhaps think they are).
A question from the audience raised a knotty problem. What if in five years’ time an agentic AI is negotiating on behalf of its deployer with another agentic AI and the models disagree over their interpretation of the law: who blinks? Henry and Dan side-stepped by suggesting negotiation is the province of humans but I’m not so sure this will hold.
Running business on ‘feels’ is a risk
After lunch (I did not spot any wraps) another panel session considered the operational risks of WraptureAI in particular, the example of suggesting a wrap combo based on the customer’s emotion. The science behind the concept is, at best, not settled and more to the legal point assuming a smile = happiness may be an inference, and inferences from such sources are frowned on EU law.
The panel also assessed the risks – not just the data ones – posed by a robot chef wielding knives behind the open (of course) kitchen as the humanoid waiting staff form inappropriate relationships with the customers.
They’re English, give them the roast beef wraps says the biased AI
The next panel delved deeper into the contractual dependencies emerging from such an operation. The provider of the AI recommendation tools is unlikely to be the same as the robot manufacturer and so all sorts of requirements and obligations around DPIAs and the identity of the data controllers will need to be sieved through. Bias is a particular risk with menu suggestions at risk of being as stereotyped as a full English.
There was also some good-hearted debate about reporting a data breach with jousting over whether to report a data breach as allergy data is sensitive. A similar conundrum was created by the example of a malicious code injection causing a 500% spike in the use of paprika. In this scenario the panel pondered the liabilities of the LLM coding provider, who may just shrug their shoulders and say “who knew a restaurant would use our model for this?”
Trump is temporary, climate change is not
Afternoon tea was prepared by a 10 minute talk from Dr Fernando Barrio on the emerging ‘green coding’ initiatives under way around the world in an attempt to make AI and tech sustainable. As he pointed out, the much hyped pauses to ESG initiatives in the US are exactly that: pauses. Meanwhile there are still 200 members of UNESCO toiling away despite the absence of the Americans.
Governance is culture
The final panel involved a bit of game playing: a Blockbusters approach to building AI Governance, as audience members picked random numbers to reveal the next element, and a Who Wants to be a Millionaire inspired tester on AI literacy through which we got to learn more about hierophancy. A key message on governance was that an absence of AI laws does not mean existing laws cannot be applied and that culture is crucial to the success of any governance framework however well drafted it may be.
Another point pressed by the panel was that AI literacy should involve everyone but should start at the top as boards are not very good at this sort of thing.
Inevitably the above gives only a small taster of a day infused with a heady sense of possibility, opportunity, challenges and a slight dread of robot restaurants. The good news, though, is that it was all recorded. If you were there on the day, it will be sent to you free but if not, you can buy your own catch-up pass very soon.
