Attempting to generate business momentum amid sluggish economic growth, UK political and business leaders have aligned, in a rare move, with technology experts to promote AI as a financial accelerator.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan comes backed by extra electrical power facilities, improved networks, a supercomputer and regional growth zones. With around £14bn provided by government, businesses and trade associations toward various projects, the plan aims to create 13,250 jobs, with an admission that job changes, and therefore losses, will be part of the shakeout.
The plan is the brainchild of Matthew Clifford, chair of the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA). He introduced 50 recommendations that form the basis of the plan, including the promotion of AI to small businesses to drive growth, adoption of AI in government.
“We all know that the UK faces some massive challenges,” said Clifford. “We need urgently to reignite growth and transform our public services. My belief is that AI is the single most powerful lever we have to achieve this. But we need to act boldly and we need to act now. That’s what the Action Plan is about,” he explained, with AI-stronghold Oxford a focal point for the first growth zone.
British AI for global growth, but at what risk?
Whatever your view of politics and the rise of intelligent apps, tools based on AI technology (existing and future) will undoubtedly play a major role in developing business growth. However, with it baked-in to every SaaS service, business application and easily accessible through multiple tools like ChatGTP, Claude and others. Do we need a huge investment when AI will soon be everywhere, across all smartphones, office devices, clouds and desktops?
A secondary issue quickly raised is the opt-out nature of the new system for writers, artists, musicians and other creators whose work is already easily plagiarised by AIs. James Ball’s insightful fresh article, “Copyright (probably) won’t save anyone from AI” is perfectly timed to highlight these issues. And, even with some checks and balances in place, concerns remain about automating services and exposing information that matters to the national interest to a potentially unpredictable AI.
Security and other risks
Highlighting the security issues, Andrew Rose, CSO at SoSafe notes, “While we are excited about the UK government’s focus on unlocking the power of AI, we must not forget the increased threat this technology has created. AI is deployed by criminals to create sophisticated phishing and social engineering attacks.”
Rose adds, “Even the benevolent AI that organisations adopt for their own benefit can become a new attack surface, subject to innovative attacks such as data poisoning. These internal AI tools could also mistakenly assist attackers in finding valuable information, key assets or help them bypass other controls.”
As part of any AI effort, and not a day goes by when AI features in a CXM story, customer, user and employee experience will play a key part in winning adoption. Clarity and use case value will help overcome doubts about a technology that now lurks in the background of all apps and services.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan includes
- Public sector AI adoption, enabling workers to reduce admin.
- Promotion of AI to small businesses to focus on faster planning and growth.
- Using AI in camera software to identify the old government bug-bear of potholes.
- Further use in the NHS and medical professions to improve diagnosis.
- Boosting the UK’s public compute capacity by 20 times.
- Cutting red tape around procurement, visas and regulatory reform to boost UK AI startup culture.