The UK prime minister’s AI adviser today (Tuesday) said the UK will lose out competitively if it’s “slow to adopt AI” and that it was unhelpful to frame AI as potentially rendering all jobs obsolete in the future.
Speaking at London Tech Week, Matt Clifford gave a rallying cry for homegrown AI firms to rise to the top, as countries battle it out for AI supremacy.
Clifford said: “I do think there is a challenge around competitiveness between countries and economies.
“We need homegrown AI companies to benefit from this. We do want UK companies to be at the forefront of building the technology that powers this productivity growth.”
Examples of leading UK AI companies include ElevenLabs, Synthesia and Wayve.
Clifford highlighted the importance that, amid the AI race, the UK was “exporting AI services rather than just importing them”.
Clifford, the brains behind the UK’s action plan for supporting the growth of AI and its use in public services, also addressed speculation, held by some, that AI could render all jobs obsolete in the future.
In 2023, Elon Musk told the then UK prime minister Rishi Sunak there “will come a time when no job is needed” as the billionaire described AI as the “most disruptive force in history".
Last month, Dario Amodei, the CEO of US AI firm Anthropic, said AI could wipe out half of all entry-level white-collar jobs.
But Clifford said it was not a “helpful framing” to talk about AI leading to an obliteration of the job market.
Instead, he said it was better to frame it as how AI can empower workers and make them “confident users” of AI.
Clifford said the question should be “how do we make it something that every person in the UK feels actually gives them superpowers and makes them more effective?”
IMAGE: PIXABAY
Would you like to write the first comment?
Login to post comments