Dilemmas and Regulation of Delegation - Ada Lovelace Institute

This event will focus on Advanced AI Assistants and what their widespread adoption could mean against a global backdrop of deregulation and AI boosterism.

The confirmed speakers are Alex Lawrence-Archer (AWO), Tim Bond (Ipsos), Harry Farmer (Ada Lovelace Institute), Julia Smakman (Ada Lovelace Institute) and Max Von Thun (Open Markets Institute).

The AI policy agenda in the UK and EU appears to be shifting its focus onto economic growth and regulatory simplification, due to geopolitical and financial pressures. At the same time, the development of emerging technologies like agentic AI systems, if unmanaged, carries amplified risks to individuals and society at large.

Our new research on Advanced AI Assistants – systems that engage users in fluid conversation, show high degrees of user personalisation and play ever more human-like roles – demonstrates the profound implications these relatively novel technologies might have for our politics and economy.

Our study shows how Assistants might change the way we interact with digital information, ideas and markets, colouring our relationships to ourselves and others, and posing difficult questions about the status and role of human expertise.

The risks we have analysed include:

• fail to deliver the sustained, broadly felt economic benefits currently used to market their adoption
• present far greater risks to privacy and security than previous digital technologies
• distort markets, disempower consumers and exacerbate monopoly power
• exert powerful, hard-to-detect influence on users’ political views and understanding of the world
• lead to widespread cognitive and practical deskilling
• undermine people’s mental health and flourishing
• degrade the quality of some public and professional services
• call into question standards of quality, protection and liability governing professionals.

This comes at a moment when regulatory initiatives are slowing down instead of accelerating – with some exceptions such as the EU Digital Fairness Act – possibly leading to a loss of hard-won digital rights and protections and to an amplification of harm.

The event will explore

• The major, systemic challenges posed by Advanced AI Assistants, including for democratic politics, market competition, mental health and wellbeing, public service provision and the regulation of professional expertise.
• The extent to which current laws and regulations are capable of addressing these challenges.
• The paths forward at this point in time, looking at what governments and industry should do to ensure that the development and spread of Advanced AI Assistants is compatible with human agency and the public good.

The event will take place on 10 December, from 17:00 to 19:00, at the Nuffield Foundation's office, 100 St John Street, London, EC1M 4EH. The event will take place on the third floor of the building, accessible via lifts located next to the reception desk.

The nearest tube stations to our office are Farringdon and Barbican (Metropolitan, Circle and Hammersmith & City, Elizabeth lines). The nearest national railway station is Farringdon, where Thameslink can also be accessed.