A state-sponsored rollout of a tool like ChatGPT Plus, as discussed by the UK government, would have plunged the nation into an ethical minefield. The £2 billion proposal raised profound questions about bias, accountability, and the state’s role in promoting a technology with known flaws.
By providing the service to all citizens, the government would have implicitly endorsed OpenAI’s product. This raises the question of who is responsible if the AI provides harmful, biased, or dangerously incorrect information. Would the government share liability with the company?
Furthermore, the data generated by an entire nation using a single AI tool would be of immense value. The discussions between Peter Kyle and Sam Altman would have needed to address who owns this data and how it can be used, a critical ethical and privacy consideration.
While the financial cost was the stated reason for shelving the idea, these unresolved ethical dilemmas likely played a significant unspoken role. A government cannot simply deploy a third-party AI to its populace without a robust framework for managing the inevitable risks, a framework that does not yet exist.