Unforeseen consequences of new technologies put UK at risk Lords committee told that the risks associated with various emerging digital technologies must be assessed together, with input from UK citizens, if the government is to avoid ‘siloisation’ of fundamentally interconnected problems Share this item with your network: By Published: 14 Jan 2021 11:31 The UK government must focus on the relationships between different digital technologies when assessing their potential risks, which would help avoid the “siloisation” of fundamentally interconnected problems, expert witnesses have told a House of Lords committee. Giving evidence to the Risk Assessment and Risk Planning Committee – which gathered virtually on 13 January to hear about the most significant technological risks facing society today – a number of witnesses told the Lords that the government’s current risk assessment framework failed to account for the interplay between different technologies, and therefore the full scope of the risks they represented.