How is the UK Responding to the Technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution?

Abstract

This paper examines the UK’s government’s on-going response to several technologies associated with the so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution. In particular, it briefly examines the UK government’s response to self-driving cars, the ethical governance of AI (including the collection and use of personal data), big data and healthcare analytics and advances in genome editing techniques and their implications. In so doing, the paper raises (but does not resolve) concerns that both scholars and policy-makers have expressed about some of the ethical and social dimensions of these so-called disruptive technological developments, outlining the various ways UK policy-makers have sought to address them, and highlighting concerns about the need to develop effective and legitimate regulatory frameworks to govern these emerging technologies. It is clear from this survey that the UK government continues to regard science and technology as important elements of the UK’s industrial strategy. Accordingly, it has actively sought to foster cutting-edge scientific research and technological innovation in order to attract international investment and as a spur to economic growth. It has done this by continuing its long tradition in supporting a ‘light touch’ regulatory approach, through which it aims to assuage public anxieties about the risks associated with the technologies of the so-called 4th Industrial Revolution, without unduly impeding technological innovation in the hope that these technologies will deliver on their promised social benefits. But although British policy- makers have been keen to demonstrate their awareness of the need to establish legitimate and effective governance mechanisms to ensure that these technologies can command public trust, as illustrated by the many and varied committees of inquiry and reviews which have been undertaken, the scale and sophistication of these data-driven technologies in both the computational and life sci-ences and the complexity and uncertainty of their ethical and social implications has meant that concrete measures to address them have not yet been forthcoming. Whether or not UK will succeed in establishing effective and legitimate oversight of the so-called AI revolution remains an open question. Given the global reach and rapid pace of their development and the extraordinary power and wealth of transnational tech firms which have been at the forefront of their advancement and application, nation states are likely to struggle in seeking to regulate these technologies effectively without broader regional and/or international regulatory cooperation.