Chamber and committees

That sounds like a good way to progress. I am sympathetic to the point that you made about wanting to take the appropriate time to test for unintended consequences and I appreciate your offer to write to the committee. On top of that, once you have reached conclusions on all the recommendations, even if some of them are to be rejected or implemented in a different way, it would be helpful for the Parliament to know the reasoning for your decision on each recommendation.

Dr Brown, I noticed that you were reacting positively to some of the comments that have been made. Do you want to add anything?

Sure. Mr Wilson, do you have anything to add?

Thank you, convener. Good morning. I thank the witnesses for their time.

Before I ask my question, I want to emphasise the points that my colleague Bob Doris raised about urban Scotland. As someone who represents a densely populated urban constituency, I think that the arguments and narrative about quality of place and health and wellbeing benefits are often much more compelling than the wider targets and discussions around the Montreal protocol, all of which can seem quite nebulous to people. Therefore, it is important that my colleague asked questions about the benefits of biodiversity in urban Scotland.

I have some questions about objective 3 in the biodiversity strategy, which is to

“Embed nature positive farming, fishing and forestry”.

Do you have confidence that agriculture, forestry and other land management policies are aligned with, and will support the delivery of, the biodiversity delivery plan? If so, why? If not, why not?

I will focus again on the questions of implementation, which were rightly raised earlier. What needs to happen in practice to ensure that agriculture, forestry and other land management sectors deliver biodiversity gains and that there is a just transition to a more nature-friendly position for farming as a mainstream approach? Does the draft delivery plan support that?

Sarah Cowie, do you want to go first?

Before I go to Bruce Wilson, as my question is focused on alignment and delivery, I will mention the discussion at the beginning of the session about engagement between Government and stakeholders and about the challenges relating to co-ordination across Government, as well as the welcome challenge of broadening biodiversity as a cross-Government objective. If witnesses want to follow up with the committee on that, either in their answers to come or afterwards, that would be useful.

Unless colleagues have any supplementaries on objective 3, I will move on to objective 4.

It sounds as if that is quite an important plan to develop at a good pace.

Ailsa Raeburn, do you want to add anything or are you content?

Objective 4, which is related to objective 3, is to

“Protect and support the recovery of vulnerable and important species and habitats”.

What should the priorities be in developing an effective species recovery, reintroduction and reinforcement programme? When it comes to restoring our native wildlife, what does that look like? Are we keeping pace with the rest of Europe in our approach to species recovery and reintroduction? What key lessons have we learned to date through, for example, our experience in supporting the reintroduction and translocation of eagles and beavers, particularly when there has been a need to manage tensions or there have been competing land management objectives? The reintroduction of beavers is a really interesting example.

Who would like to come in first on that?

Good morning, all. Thank you for your time and fascinating insights so far. Your points around the necessity of judging AI on its data source are so important. Recently, I heard somebody say that, even if the technology is perfect, AI will never be perfect because it is reliant on the data within. It will be so important to apply critical thinking to AI and the dataset that it relies on.

You rightly cautioned us with warnings. I have seen some reporting from the United States of America, where, in Silicon Valley, for example, there are schools where they do not use computers or tablets because they want people to learn wider creative skills with a pen and paper. However, it is also true that this technology is here and that it will be a big part of the future. You have made those points.

I want to ask some questions about utilisation. Chris Ranson spoke wisely about how there needs to be a sense that AI is something to be used but that we must not think about learning about AI; rather, we should think about how to train young people to fit into an AI economy of the future, because it will be a big part of the economy. How do we get the balance right? What skills are required to use generative AI, and when should we bring them into the curriculum? Perhaps Professor Robertson would like to go first. You talked about how, as a computer scientist, you think that everyone should learn those skills. When should they learn them and what should they learn?