Is Keir Starmer's AI revolution progress or pipe dream? How to balance bold promises with common sense
13 January 2025, 12:40
LBC’s Will Guyatt on whether Keir Starmer's Plan for Change means anything.
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When a government press release lands in your mailbox and promises that their new plan "mainlines AI into the veins of this enterprising nation" you know that Artificial Intelligence is one of the most popular buzzwords and the great hope for another year ahead.
In a dump of around ten A4 pages worth of spiel and briefing notes, the government paints the picture of the UK as "Agents of Change" - the idea that AI will transform the lives of working people, and the government will use it to miraculously solve all the public sector's problems.
Apparently, AI will speed up planning, stop teachers having to spend their time on admin, enable small businesses to keep all their accounts and records under control, and reduce bureaucracy. Before you turn the public sector upside with AI - why not fix some of the issues?
It's all very well reporting potholes via AI - but who has the budget to fix them? I've recently missed medical appointments because they were sent by second-class post and not email, which has been commonly used since 1995. AI can do many things, but it won't stop public services using fax machines.
Make no mistake - I'm very excited about the future AI brings, it can already helped detect breast cancer at the earliest possible stage of diagnosis, and this is before the complex algorithms can pour all over NHS data - it won't need to know who you are, but your case could help save the lives of others.
That said - it would appear the Labour government have taken the brakes off the AI revolution. While Rishi Sunak encouraged AI with guardrails and protections - there seems to be none of that in the Labour AI action plan – what’s not to say companies could adopt AI and discover they need less human workers?
Intriguingly, the ten-page brief spoke of a benefit of £47bn annual to the UK economy over the next decade and thousands of new jobs from private investment - but at no stage did it speak about job losses. If the public sector gets 'transformed' by AI - that likely equals significant job losses - not just in admin roles.
And finally, if AI is being asked to make loads of decisions about things as important as benefits, please ensure there is a suitable means to people to appeal to real human beings - we cannot face another decade or two of 'computer says no' as it gets to grips with the complexity of human life
I’m ready for the AI revolution – but just not at the expense of common sense.
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