The House of Lords Defence Committee has just published its public inquiry report into the lessons to be learned from the Ukraine war.
Titled “Ukraine: A wake-up call,” the report aims to examine the implications of the war in Ukraine for UK defence, focusing on how lessons learned from the conflict can inform and enhance UK defence strategies and capabilities.
What is not widely known, but groundbreaking in its approach, is that the House of Lords Committee embraced innovation, and, for the first time in Parliamentary history, trialled AI-generated evidence in a public inquiry. Whitespace had the unique opportunity to contribute industry insights through an AI solution we developed, Tarkin, which draws upon the extensive knowledge and data available in the public domain and open-source resources. This initiative represented a cautious yet innovative approach to gathering and presenting evidence, and we were honoured to have collaborated with the Committee and have been a part of it.
Tarkin was originally developed in close collaboration with the MoD’s Defence Innovation Unit, the Financial Military Capability team, and the office of the former Vice Chief of Defence Staff, to enable users to ask strategic questions in natural language and use Tarkin as an advanced research aid by unlocking insights from Open Source Intelligence (OSINT). Tasks that once required days of human effort can now be completed in minutes, thanks to the latest advancements in Generative AI. This capability marked a significant milestone in Whitespace’s journey with Generative AI and underlined the potential for AI to transform traditional processes.
In alignment with the concept of dual-use and exploitable defence innovations, the Whitespace team proposed a collaboration with the House of Lords Defence Committee in April of this year. We aimed to trial the Tarkin tool to generate our evidence submission for several questions raised by the Committee during their public inquiry. The Committee supported this initiative as it allowed them to explore the potential role of AI in augmenting human expertise and intelligence, within a controlled environment. The AI sources were known and ranked for credibility and relevance, and the evidence was submitted under the Whitespace name, ensuring clear attribution.
In their published report, "Ukraine: A Wake-up Call," the Committee has put forth several recommendations on the understanding and application of AI within UK Defence. The Whitespace team particularly commends the Committee for not only making these recommendations but also for taking the first exploratory steps to examine the future role of AI in supporting public inquiries and Parliamentary committees. By collaborating on this trial we have been able to demonstrate how AI could enhance the business of government but in a private, secure, and trusted manner.
“This collaboration between industry and Parliament represents a significant step forward,” says Andrew Webber, CRO at Whitespace. “While the use of Generative AI holds immense potential, it also raises important concerns regarding trust in the output as well as the necessity of ensuring privacy and security with the inputs. We worked closely with the House of Lords Committee to address these challenges before finalising our evidence submission to the public inquiry. The result was a thoroughly impartial submission from Whitespace, based solely on aggregated insights and facts from the public domain—delivered with a speed and quality that only the latest Generative AI can provide.”
Since the AI evidence submission in April, the pace of advancements in Generative AI technology has been remarkable. Whitespace has fully embraced these developments, further enhancing Tarkin to become an even more powerful, insightful, and trusted AI capability. Furthermore, Tarkin is set to be deployed with enhanced security classifications so that the UK MoD can further embrace its capabilities in 2025.
We are also excited to announce the launch of a non-Defence version of Tarkin, called "Collective Insights." This new iteration is designed for use in both the private and public sectors. Collective Insights retains the same focus on privacy, security, and trust as Tarkin, and is developed to help organisations leverage AI for rapid research delivery. By generating new, previously unknown insights, Collective Insights aims to enhance business decision-making. It ensures that AI is employed in a manner that prioritises privacy, security, and trust, especially when handling sensitive data and queries, all while maintaining the highest quality of output.
