The announcement comes ahead of an AI safety summit hosted by Sunak, where he aims to reach global agreements on the safe development of AI systems. There are concerns, however, that the chatbot could direct taxpayers away from understaffed phone lines and towards chatbots, potentially increasing pressure on call centres. In a related development, UK AI founders have urged the Prime Minister to open up the NHS's patient data to train AI algorithms and boost the country's technology sector.
Key takeaways:
- Rishi Sunak is planning to launch an AI chatbot, Gov.uk Chat, to assist the public with taxes and pensions. The technology is provided by OpenAI, a Microsoft-funded AI giant.
- The chatbot will be trained on the gov.uk website and will not use citizens’ personal data for training. However, if users enter personal information, it will be sent to Open AI and processed in the United States.
- The introduction of the chatbot could potentially alleviate pressure on call centres such as HMRC, but there are concerns that taxpayers may be directed away from phone lines to chatbots.
- UK AI founders have urged the Prime Minister to open the NHS’s patient data to train AI algorithms and boost the UK's technology sector. They suggest making these data pools available as part of “high-quality, curated, open training datasets” that have been vetted for privacy and copyright concerns.