Professor Alan Smeaton:

I was also at the summit. It was interesting that the first one was in Bletchley Park a few years ago and it was a safety summit. Then there was one in Korea, which was not about anything specific and the one in Paris was about AI action. The narrative had moved away from safety to President Macron's view about getting things in action.

We do not have a good history of regulating technology and innovation. I do not personally remember this, but in 1865 the red flag Act was introduced in the UK Parliament. It said that for automatic vehicles - cars - a man had to precede the car carrying a red flag at walking speed.

That was the introduction of legislation and regulation for motor vehicles. We do not have a very good history in this regard. On the other hand, if we do not regulate - like we have not regulated social media - we get something even more undesirable.

There is a sweet spot in between the two poles of no regulation and over-regulation. The European AI Act was paused in its development when generative AI happened. There was a return to the drawing board because it was felt it was necessary to do it again due to the emergence of generative AI and large language models. That is good. It does have some flaws and some people will knock it, but it is better than the alternative, which is to have no regulation.