Chamber and committees

I have two questions, one of which is for the entire panel. I will ask it first, but if you could answer it second, that would be great—if that makes sense. This might have been implicit in what you have already said, but is it possible for you to give us one ask that you have for the Scottish Government and one ask that you have for the UK Government?

Before you give us those asks, I do not know whether Lisa Whytock is still with us—

I will ask my second question. If your preferred ask of the Scottish Government is a Scottish export office—as it is Lisa Whytock’s—what would its function be, beyond being an investment source, given that reserved issues such as carnets, immigration, visas and stuff like that are not determined in Scotland?

I have a final question, and I ask you to give a yes or no answer if possible. A lot of people predicted that Brexit would lead to a cultural cul-de-sac, so the issues are not a surprise to people. However, is it more accurate to say that nobody talked about abolishing freedom of movement during the Brexit referendum, and the loss of that is causing the bulk of touring artists’ problems?

We are all gutted about that. Thank you.

I have a very quick final question that follows on from what Professor Basiri just said. I do not know whether you will have views on this, too, Professor Schaffer.

On the point about losing personnel—I note that University College London was mentioned—it seems to me that, because AI is going to dominate in so many areas and because it will be so crucial to the economies of different countries and their future, we should really be a bit more assertive about how we get it. You have mentioned the absence of Erasmus+, and we are not getting what we need currently—because of Brexit, in my view.

However, the fact is that UK Governments past and present have been pathologically opposed to immigration of any kind. When the US did the same thing a number of years ago, they immediately had to reverse it, because they were losing some of the best minds in the world, who could no longer go to universities in the States. Is there a case or any scope for the UK Government to look at either exemptions or special cases, for example, to encourage the best brains to come here?

Moreover, when I was in the military a long time ago, you could get training to be what was then called a telecommunications technician. It involved a year-long course, with a lot of investment from the Government, and anybody who undertook it was obliged to stay in the armed forces for five years. Is there a case for saying that somebody who benefits from a special visa to come here has to pay it back by staying for a period of time? Might that stop the dispersal of personnel elsewhere?

I am just interested in hearing your views on that. Do you want to start, Professor Schaffer?

Thank you.

It is not dissimilar to the use of ethical hackers, who are used in Dundee in particular.

You talked about data; there is a lot of discussion about where Scotland and the UK stand on that. From reading between the lines, it seems that you are suggesting that we—both Scotland and the UK—sometimes big ourselves up to be bigger than we actually are.

You said that we are lagging behind in some areas, especially in recruitment and personnel, but that we are perhaps at the leading edge of technological development in some cases. Is that hampered by the fact that, as far as I know, Scotland does not have a supercomputer? That has been discussed a lot recently in relation to the University of Edinburgh; the supercomputer is going to the Oxford-Cambridge corridor instead. I do not know what you would call it—I do not even know if it relates to AI, to be honest. You have talked about data and storage of data. Is not having that computing power in Scotland a big constraint?

If that is your ask of the Scottish Government, what is your top ask of the UK Government?

I suppose that I was not arguing for something that would require university training to understand it—I am talking about a more basic consumer right. I appreciate Professor Schaffer’s example of a call centre, but it seems to me that that is much more mechanistic; you wait for a few seconds before somebody speaks.

The idea that I am talking about relates mainly to disinformation in either images or language. It also touches on intellectual property; in the next session, we will hear from musicians, as the issue is very important for them. When someone has been using AI, I am not saying that it has to be labelled, but it, and the purposes for which it has been used, should be discoverable.

You mentioned the gap a number of times—there is always a gap—and you have both mentioned how fast moving this area is. Regulation, or policing, often has to catch up with what is developing in a lot of different fields. However, AI is moving so fast that the gap can be huge, and so much can happen before the law catches up with it.

This question might be facetious, and it is probably born of my ignorance. Nonetheless, is it possible to consider—or is it being considered—that AI itself might present the best opportunity for policing and enforcement? If we use AI to anticipate what AI is going to do, we can use it to help to regulate AI. Is that being looked at just now?

In addition, I want to go back to something that Lisa said about Scotland being too small a country to sustain whatever it was—I did not catch the rest of it. It would be useful if we could have your views on that and if you could say how Ireland seems to manage to sustain whatever it is, while we cannot. Colin, will you answer that first?