–Rare Event: British Minister Admits Copyright Theft; Concedes Tech Billionaires Threaten UK’s UN Security Council Seat

Reporting and opinion by Mathew Carr

Peter Kyle, science and tech secretary of Britain (a cabinet minister), spoke on a “Leadership” podcast earlier this week of “The Rest is Politics”, with Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell.

It’s worth listening to and here are some highlights:

On the opportunities:

“The people who have these big (AI) models … the countries that have them, are going to be responsible for, or benefit from, the greatest opportunity for wealth creation, the greatest opportunity for hard and soft power around the world.

“Because the impact it’s going to have on security and defense is going to be huge when you look at how America has used sort of nuclear, civil and defensive nuclear, the relationship is quite subordinate with other countries that they partner with. And actually that isn’t a unique insight. The Senate last year published a memo which said that they want the same relationship on AI. They want to have the absolute cutting edge. They want to have partners who are allied countries, but they want the allied countries to be kind of dependent on them for it.

Governments are increasingly using AI in military decision-making: study finds AI war games escalate conflicts, push arms races, and justify nuclear strikes. “We find that all five studied off-the-shelf LLMs show forms of escalation and difficult-to-predict escalation patterns.”… pic.twitter.com/Q5a265gNmL

— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) March 13, 2025

“Well, I want us to be at the very forefront of it, because those countries will be able to shape how it goes, how it is used and deployed. I don’t want us to (miss) the next massive period of this industrial transformation that we are going to have because of AI, always buying off the shelf from other countries. And I think if we have the opportunity to have, you know, some of these very, very conceptual, powerful, cutting edge pieces of work whose derivatives can then start flowing through the economy domestically, then the opportunities for wealth creation, but also staying at the top seat in this global order of how decisions and power is influenced, and the ability to express our values and principles as a country, then AI is going to be absolutely central to it.

“The question you have to ask yourself is, if we were going to have a new (UN) security council that would be set up in 10 years time, after AI has gone through another 10 years, you can bet that actually, your ability to influence the world via technology in particular, AI, is going to be one of the things that will indicate who are the top countries and the most influential countries that need to be together in the room where big decisions are made.“

On how to stop AI from driving even worse inequality ?

“It’s another reason why we in Britain need to get this right. We’ve got great universities, great skills and great investment landscape. Britain and Europe is working in an incredibly tight and functional way these days, and I’ve seen that myself.

On misinformation arrests after the Southport killings, criticisms of the UK for arresting people for misinformation:

“We made lots of arrests at that point in that period. And our laws haven’t changed. Our laws will not change. You know, the law on misinformation in this country actually is quite a high bar, because you have to show intent. Just words alone don’t get you there. You have to show how you are intending to use those words in order to provoke the kind of (unlawful) outcomes.”

On whether the tech bros have British people/Britain over a barrel, part 1:

“There is no question that some of the companies in that in the tech world, have a power that very few companies in the past have ever had. You have to go back quite a long way to find it…. So if you look at if you look at Silicon Valley, if you look at big rising sectors in the past, when a breakthrough sector emerges in the past, there is a time when it reaches a certain power, economic power, that ends up getting into politics. And what we’ve just seen in the last two years or so, maybe a bit longer that’s happened in Silicon Valley.

“And that’s something that feels very new. Actually, previous generations have dealt with it in the past, you know, with oil companies and and others. And you look at some of the Vanderbilts and the rest of it in America, the, you know, East India Company here, you know it happens.

“This has now happened with the tech world. So again, there are individuals out there, but there are also these big companies. And just just to give you a sense of why we need to be … we need to act with humility. What I actually meant with that is that I can’t sit in Whitehall anymore, or we can’t sit in Whitehall, Brussels or Washington anymore, and legislate and regulate to get these companies to do what we want them to do, actually, we have to deploy statecraft in a way, in addition to legislation, in addition to regulation, we have to deploy state craft for which we’ve only really (previously) deployed against counterparts and other governments….

“If you take the big the big five, six companies, tech companies, most of them will be spending more on R and D (than countries do).

“Amazon, for example, spends more on R and D in singular technological development than the entire British state does in public r&d … for their commercial purposes. And look what they’ve done with it. And you look at what they’re doing with data, super computing. They’re putting (1000s) of satellites into space. …You as a state, going along, you know to that the relationship has to be sophisticated. I do have tests for myself when I have these meetings, because I have the privilege of meeting people very, very senior chief execs and presidents of these companies, and when I sit with them, I hope, because in the very, very first week that I had this job, I brought in victims of social media harm, and I sat with parents (families) who have lost children to online activity, and I listened to them — and I’ve had them in again before making announcements before I’ve done things that might be challenging for them — I speak to them directly, and I hope, when I end (finish) these meetings, that yes, I’m there to beat the drum for Britain and investment and and the like … but I always will say what the expectations of Britain is…and what our government has of them, should they come to Britain and operate here. And I hope those families would be proud of the words that I say, at least content with the words that I use.”

On the AI consultation in the UK:

“Let’s just understand exactly what I am doing. So I have a data bill going through Parliament at the moment. … the data bill is actually about keeping us in compliance with the EU for data sharing across… Now, if we don’t do that by June, then we fall out and all data for commercial and government businesses cannot pass the English Channel. …The Lords have attached amendments on this to this bill, and what I have tried to do is to separate so that and give a specific moment to Parliament to look at the issue you’ve raised, which is about how the relationships between creative the creative arts sector and AI can interact in the modern times. I’ve said that the consultation, which closed recently …I will legislate fully on the back of that. And, you know, I’ll be setting out exactly what the red lines are, you know, in the coming, you know, period on it, but I need to listen to the consultation in order to do so. But I’ve been forced into this debate now because of an amendment to be in such a different piece of legislation.

“If I could just say one thing on this. We have the second largest creative arts sector in the world. We have the third largest AI market in the world.

“And what I’m being asked to do is to choose between one and the other.

“The copyright laws are 300 years old, and there is one reality which is immutable, and that is:

that all of the data that people are worried about has already been scraped and used by AI companies because… not one of them, not one of them is domiciled in the UK.

“So unless you have international copyright attached to your work, which is respected in California, then your data has already been subsumed into the AI system.

“And when it comes to China, they have no regard for any copyright anywhere in the world has already been (put up there)…. So this is about how we move forward from where we are, and I’m trying to find a way through that will will give the protections for people who are creating”

Are the tech bros holding us over a barrel, part 2?

“They have had (us over a barrel, yes), but the only way that we can have influence over them is to have them here, abiding to British laws, because I can’t pass laws that will have an impact in the Gulf or in Texas.

So what we are doing is trying to find a way through where we can have the relationships. They can come to Britain to do it. But … I will not sell creative artists downstream in order to do so (ie in order to attract the tech bros to Britain).

“Their rights (creatives’ rights) will be protected in the modern age, and they shouldn’t always have to end up going to court in order to make sure that they can have the rights that they need, because you need so much money to do that.”

https://open.spotify.com/episode/0fNH88k2mwFCdVIWMawYXb?si=WOqux1E0QGioeTKQkUAS5A&context=spotify%3Ashow%3A0Z0KhuivFm1Ry4WIpWspPv

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Notes