Troubling or trusted: Citizens’ sentiment on big tech in public sector AI
Policymakers need to make sure that AI in the public sector is being driven by public, not private, interests – and support public confidence in private sector involvement through transparency
I’ve previously written about the challenge of having a meaningful debate about ‘AI’. As the term covers such a multitude of technologies and use cases – all with different levels of maturity and evidence – it can reasonably elicit very different feelings in different contexts.
In our research with the UK public, it’s clear that there’s another key issue shaping people’s views of ‘AI’, particularly when discussions turn to questions of trust or legitimacy: the role and influence of ‘big tech’.
For many, concerns about AI are deeply connected to concerns about the power, profits and motivations of private technology companies. Just as the Cambridge Analytica scandal affected public attitudes on the use of data and algorithms, public perceptions of big tech are colouring views on AI, including its use in public services.
If the UK government wants to expand the AI adoption across public services, it will need to grapple with public doubts about private sector involvement.
These concerns show up in different ways in our research, affecting attitudes toward the development of AI technologies, data sharing and trust in regulation. These conclusions are based on our research programme, which has engaged with almost 16,000 people through four nationwide attitudinal surveys and nearly 400 people in deeper qualitative studies.
- Development: We found that public concerns about AI technologies, e.g. AI used to assess welfare eligibility or predicting the risk of cancer, are higher when these are produced by private companies rather than government bodies, NGOs or academics.
- Data: People have serious concerns about public sector data being shared with private companies. In our national survey, 83% were very or somewhat concerned and only 3% were not at all concerned about public-private data sharing. This should be taken seriously by policymakers as greater licence is given for data reuse and sharing.
- Motivations: Concerns were raised about the motivations of private companies. For example, one member of the public said: “[On digital health services] I’m not sure that all of the information is kept just to making services better within the NHS. I think it’s used for [corporations] and large companies that do not have the patients’ best interests at heart, I don’t think.”
- Fair value: In a discussion of health data partnerships, it was clear that the public wanted the NHS to appropriately recognise the value of health data and establish proper governance to prevent it from being exploited. These concerns also came through strongly in our deliberative work on AI-powered genomic health prediction.
- Regulation: Underlying these specific worries are general concerns about the ‘teeth’ and capacity of regulators to take meaningful action against big tech. As one participant in our Citizens’ Biometrics Council put it, penalties might prove insignificant to large technology companies.
Read more: Why public legitimacy for AI in the public sector isn’t just a ‘nice to have’
Government discourse about AI in the public sector doesn’t always engage with these concerns directly. Ministers have talked boldly about its ambitions for AI adoption across the sector, but talk less about where these systems are coming from, who profits from them. and what it might mean for public sector innovation to be so reliant on the private sector.
With the rise of more powerful generative and general-purpose models, the issue needs to be confronted: we cannot separate discussions about AI in the public sector from discussions of the AI value chain.
The resource-intensive nature of deep learning means that the current generation of advanced AI models cannot exist without the infrastructure provided by a small number of powerful tech companies. This means public sector tools often depend on cloud infrastructure or foundation models provided and controlled by the private sector.
The government has just announced far-reaching partnerships with Google, who will provide free technology to the public sector and teach civil servants how to use AI, and OpenAI, who will explore where it can deploy AI in areas such as justice, defence and security.
Far from easing public concerns, these types of deeper partnerships may reinforce the perception that AI in the public sector involves handing more power and access to private companies, even if the stated objectives or potential benefits have public support.
It’s not misplaced of the public to think about AI as being more than a technical issue or topic. AI raises a broader set of questions about politics, power and profit.
So to reassure the public that rapid adoption of AI is primarily serving the public interest, the government should provide greater clarity about the role of private tech companies in the public sector.
AI-driven reforms of the public sector may be able to deliver meaningful benefits for people and society, but we need a clear account of where and how private companies are influencing the adoption of their own technologies.
It is essential that policymakers bring a critical lens to this growing accumulation of power and remain alert to the potential longer-term risks for society and the state, from dependency and ‘lock-in’ to value-for-money. Clarity and scrutiny are essential for building public trust, and greater transparency will be a key first step.
Unless public scepticism is addressed head on, the government will face an uphill battle in showing that AI in the public sector is being driven by public, not private, interests. But there are clear opportunities on the table for bold action if the government chooses to take them – in decisions about AI and copyright, the scope of the forthcoming AI legislation, and in strengthening procurement processes for AI.
Read more: Do we need a ‘What Works Centre’ for public sector AI?
About Imogen Parker
Imogen is Associate Director (Society, justice & public services) at the Ada Lovelace Institute. Imogen’s career has been at the intersection of social justice, technology and research. In her previous role as Head of the Nuffield Foundation’s programmes on Justice, Rights and Digital Society she worked in collaboration with the founding partner organisations to create the Institute. Prior to that she was acting Head of Policy Research for Citizens and Democracy at Citizens Advice, Research Fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) and worked with Baroness Kidron to create the children’s digital rights charity 5Rights. She is a Policy Fellow at Cambridge University’s Centre for Science and Policy.
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