Artificial intelligence firms operating in the UK would have to share the results of technology road tests under a Labour government, the party has revealed.

Shadow technology secretary Peter Kyle has laid out Labour’s approach to AI, which he said is necessary in order for the UK to avoid being as “behind the curve” as it has been with social media.

Regulation and use of social media in the UK, particularly by children, has been brought to the spotlight again following the jailing of the teenage pair who murdered Brianna Ghey.

Speaking to the BBC, Kyle said that there should be more transparency from tech firms, and said that a Labour government would make firms working in AI to be more open with their use of data and practices.

Specifically, Labour aims to replace a voluntary testing agreement between tech companies and the government with a statutory regime which would compel firms to share test data with officials.

He said: “We will move from a voluntary code to a statutory code so that those companies engaging in that kind of research and development have to release all of the test data and tell us what they are testing for, so we can see exactly what is happening and where this technology is taking us.”

The voluntary agreement was struck between the Conservative government and leading AI firms at November’s inaugural global AI safety summit. It received backing from the EU and 10 countries including the US, and companies including Google, Amazon, Meta and Microsoft-backed OpenAI.

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