UK mulls post Brexit bots to negotiate free trade deals

The UK government is considering using AI chatbots to help negotiate post-Brexit free trade deals as well as a range of other tasks, according to a blog post penned by AI and data ethics experts at the Department of Business and Trade.

Identifying topics and trends in Free Trade Agreements text to assist negotiators is one of several tasks that civil servants hope will help with productivity.

In the blog post, the department’s AI data ethics lead, James McBride, and data ethics manager, Emma Taylor, wrote that the ideas were being assessed for potential data protection and cybersecurity issues.

Twenty-eight submissions were received through the AI governance framework in total.

Other tasks that the civil service hope to use AI on to co-assist include global trade forecasting; audio transcription of ministerial interviews and reviewing job descriptions.

According to the blog, submissions have been split approximately 2:1 between various forms of generative AI tools and more traditional machine learning or Natural Language Processing (NLP) approaches.

ChatGPT was overwhelmingly the most suggested generative AI tool, though a range of more specialised tools were mentioned in submissions for more focused applications.

The blog added that none of the department’s plans for AI would “involve automated decision-making about individuals”.

The blog confirmed that submissions that include the use of generative AI are set to undergo further scrutiny to investigate risks unique to generative AI models, like hallucination and privacy concerns.

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Commenting on this development Javvad Malik, lead security awareness advocate at KnowBe4 was reassured that the tech was ulitmately being used as a data filter, with human beings at the helm.

He said: “With AI prone to hallucinations (making up facts), the potential of information being leaked, or mistakes being copied verbatim, it is vital that people don’t become complacent and outsource all their work to AI.

“Rather, we need to not lose sight of the human element. AI in its current form is nothing beyond an assistant to the human mind, not a replacement. The department’s emphasis on using AI to filter data, with ‘experienced officials then making a final assessment,’ underlines a crucial balance between machine efficiency and human ingenuity,” he added.

Elsewhere in the UK’s Civil Service, the Cabinet Office is at the advanced trial stage of its Redbox Copilot project – which has followed the same governance framework that the department of business and trade is currently using.

Redbox- named after the red briefcases used by ministers to carry official papers – is designed to search and analyse government papers and rapidly summarise them into briefings.