In response to a parliamentary question, minister Ian Murray tells MPs DCMS is using artificial intelligence tech to summarise documents, enhance its data science capabilities and analyse responses to consultations
The Department for Culture, Media and Sport has shone a light on its use of artificial intelligence – and revealed that drafting reports is one way it is seeking to harness the technology.
Newly appointed DCMS junior minister Ian Murray provided a breakdown of key areas of AI use in a recently published answer to a written parliamentary question from Reform MP Lee Anderson, who asked what purposes the culture department had used AI for in the past year.
Murray responded last week that the department is “in its early days” in terms of AI usage and measuring the benefits to productivity.
However, he added: “In the past year the department has used AI for the following: summarising large documents and emails; analysis of large documents, drawing out key information and drafting reports; drafting meeting notes; generating draft content; enhancing our departmental data science capability; proof of concept of using AI large language models to analyse free text responses to a public consultation.”
Murray stressed that there is human oversight of work that has AI involvement.
“AI produced data or drafts are manually reviewed,” he said. “No decisions are made by the department based on AI outputs, without manual checks and manual intervention.”
He said that DCMS follows the government’s AI Playbook principles on safe, effective and responsible adoption of AI, and works closely with DSIT as the “digital centre of government”.
“Any use of third-party AI tooling is subject to multidisciplinary assurance prior to any use, including cybersecurity, data protection, knowledge and information management, and technology assurance,” he said.
Murray is now minister of state responsible for the creative industries, media and arts at DCMS, and also minister for digital government and data at the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology.
When Anderson originally posed his written question on September 1, Murray was secretary of state for Scotland. But he was stripped of that role in the reshuffle prompted by the resignation of deputy prime minister Angela Rayner and later offered the more junior DCMS and DSIT postings.
