Debate contribution: Artificial Intelligence Strategy

Debate contribution by Ms Sinéad McLaughlin on 14 September 2026.

MLA: Ms Sinéad McLaughlin
Party at the time: Social Democratic and Labour Party
Date: 14 September 2026
Type: Debate contribution
Business: Opposition Business
Heading: Artificial Intelligence Strategy
Assembly identifier: Official Report component 5686113

Text

Thank you, Madam Principal Deputy Speaker. I thank Members across the House for their contributions to what has been a short debate but an important conversation. I make it clear that the motion is not anti-AI or anti-investment. Artificial intelligence has enormous potential. Stewart Dickson outlined, and other Members mentioned, the advancement of diagnostic accuracy by AI in medicine. It will also improve productivity, help us deliver better public services and create entirely new industries and jobs. Northern Ireland should absolutely want to be part of that. We also, however, need to have a much bigger conversation about what AI will mean for our society. The technology is developing at extraordinary pace, and we are already asking what it will mean for people's jobs and for the future of work. There are really serious questions to be asked about privacy, misinformation and how AI could affect our democracy. We also need to think about inequality. Will the technology create opportunities for everyone, or will its benefits become concentrated among those who already hold enormous wealth and power? Those are not questions for the distant future; they are questions that the Government need to start answering now. Increasingly, the warnings about the pace of change are coming from within the AI industry itself. Peter Martin and others mentioned that Dario Amodei, chief executive of Anthropic, recently warned that, over the summer, AI has been "advancing drastically faster" than even he envisaged. Just this morning, Angela Rayner, when she was pressed, said that she is pleased that AI companies are now talking openly about the threats as well as the opportunities. We should listen to that. Matthew O'Toole said that, if the people developing the technology are telling us how quickly it is advancing, Government cannot simply stand back and hope that regulation and public policy will eventually catch up. We need to decide what we want from AI and ask, "Where can it make people's lives better? Where can it improve our public services? How do we protect workers whose jobs may change as a result of it, and what safeguards do we need to make sure that people remain in control of the technology rather than the other way round?". That is why we welcome the Executive Office consultation on the AI strategy. We should be ambitious, but, as most Members indicated, that ambition cannot simply mean adopting as much AI as possible as quickly as possible. It means making deliberate choices about how we use it and making sure that the public interest is at the heart of those choices. Part of that is about understanding the physical consequences of AI. For all the talk about AI existing in the cloud, the infrastructure behind it is very real. Large-scale AI data centres require significant amounts of electricity, water and grid capacity. However, as I said, modern data centres are getting genuinely greener. As Kate Nicholl indicated, liquid cooling and heat reuse cut energy waste, and on-site solar, wind and battery storage reduces pressure on grid systems. Fundamentally, we need to push for greater sustainability in the area. It is not anti-investment; it is absolutely about positive policy. We should be driving the policy rather than letting the big AI companies dictate what is required here. That really matters, because Northern Ireland already has serious infrastructure concerns and legally binding climate targets to meet. Before further large-scale development takes place, it is entirely reasonable for Government to understand what the consequences will be and whether the economic benefits justify the costs. We should demand that any new facilities increasingly pair solar, wind and battery storage systems with their primary power feed. That is not unreasonable at all. It is not about closing Northern Ireland off to AI or technological investment; it is about giving Government the space — just the space — to understand what the technology will mean economically, environmentally and socially before development races ahead of public policy, and about ensuring that any development is balanced against a range of other objectives. AI will be one of the most significant technological changes that any of us sees in our lifetime. There is enormous opportunity in that, and I want Northern Ireland to benefit from it, but we should not get confused and, in embracing innovation, abandon our responsibility to shape it.
Government have a responsibility to protect the public interest and prepare our economy and workforce for the future.

741 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

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