UK prime minister reveals plan for AI to ‘turbocharge every single element’ of government
The UK prime minister today announced an ambitious plan to make the nation a world leader in artificial intelligence (AI), harnessing the technology to drive growth, improve medical care and reduce administration in the public sector.
Speaking at University College London, Keir Starmer stressed that the technology is already delivering benefits, using the example of a British woman who had a blood clot on her brain removed in less than three minutes thanks to AI helping to pinpoint its exact location.
“AI isn’t something…of the future, over the next hill. It’s the present. It’s already here in Britain, changing lives, a chance to turbocharge growth, create the companies of the future and radically improve our public services,” Starmer said.
The government’s announcement said the AI Opportunities Action Plan “mainlines AI into the veins of [the UK]” and seeks to revolutionise public services, “putting more money in people’s back pockets”.
“For too long we have allowed blockers to control the public discourse and get in the way of growth in this sector,” the announcement stated.
Read more: UK government commissions AI action plan with a focus on growth
AI and public services
Starmer, meanwhile, used his speech to highlight what he called “the irony of AI” – that it stands to make public services more human by taking over some tasks.
“AI will…reconnect staff with the reasons that they came to public service in the first place, a force that will turbocharge every single element of our plan for change, the defining opportunity of our generation,” he said.
According to the plan, which was developed by Matt Clifford, a tech entrepreneur and chair of the Advanced Research and Invention Agency who has now been appointed as Starmer’s advisor on AI opportunities, “AI could be the government’s single biggest lever to deliver its five missions” of kickstarting economic growth; making Britain a clean energy superpower; taking back our streets; breaking down barriers to opportunity; and building an NHS fit for the future. To harness this, the plan states that the government will appoint an AI lead for each mission “to help identify where AI could be a solution within the mission setting, considering the user needs from the outset”.
Underscoring the practical benefits AI offers for core public services such as the UK’s National Health Service (NHS), Starmer said: “If you’re worried about waiting times…AI can save hundreds of thousands of hours lost to missed appointments, because it can identify those on the list most likely not to turn up, and help get them the support that they need.”
Clifford said that the plan “puts us all-in – backing the potential of AI to grow our economy, improve lives for citizens, and make us a global hub for AI investment and innovation”.
He added: “AI offers opportunities we can’t let slip through our fingers, and these steps put us on the strongest possible footing to ensure AI delivers in all corners of the country, from building skills and talent to revolutionising our infrastructure and compute power.”
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The ‘global race of our lives’
The prime minister also addressed the fear among civil servants and the public at large about the potential of AI development to skirt key safety considerations and threaten livelihoods.
“I do understand that change on this scale and at this speed can be worrying, particularly when experts warn about safety risks,” he said.
“The last government was right to establish the world’s leading AI Safety Institute, and we will build on that.”
However, he cautioned that the government shouldn’t focus solely on safety and “leave the rest to the market” but must seize the opportunities of AI.
“Government has a responsibility to make it work for working people and the opportunities of this technology, they’re not just going to somehow fall into our lap. This is the global race of our lives,” he said.
Turning to the subject of regulation, Starmer said that the race was not just to lead the world in innovation, but to do so with the values of a culture and society embedded in decisions along the way.
“Whose values are going to shape this technology as it develops? The open values that this country holds dear or other countries? I don’t think that government should be neutral on these questions, and this government won’t be,” he said.
He also said government would “test and understand AI” before regulating it “to make sure that when we do it’s proportionate and grounded in the science”.
Starmer said finally: “Mark my words, Britain will be one of the great AI superpowers. Now that’s not some sort of boosterism or wishful thinking. This can be done and it will be done.”
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The accelerator and the brake
Starmer’s comments on balancing caution and action reflect one of the major findings from exclusive Global Government Forum research published in September. The Digital Leaders 2024 report was based on interviews with 10 digital leaders in government about their perceptions of the UK’s performance on AI.
Its key finding was that the UK was not yet ready to fully capitalise on the opportunities offered by AI and this was encapsulated by a comment made by one interviewee, who said: “It’s like we’re driving a car with one foot very firmly pressed down on the accelerator and one foot pressed down on the brake.”
The interviewees highlighted that while the UK government was doing important work around standards and AI safety, more should be done to enable the testing, trialling, implementing and scaling-up of AI applications.
The report called for a clear, overarching AI roadmap and set out the key elements it should cover.
Download the report: Digital Leaders Study 2024 – embedding AI across government in the UK
About Jack Aldane
Jack is a British journalist, cartoonist and podcaster. He graduated from Heythrop College London in 2009 with a BA in philosophy, before living and working in China for three years as a freelance reporter. After training in financial journalism at City University from 2013 to 2014, Jack worked at Bloomberg and Thomson Reuters before moving into editing magazines on global trade and development finance. Shortly after editing opinion writing for UnHerd, he joined the independent think tank ResPublica, where he led a media campaign to change the health and safety requirements around asbestos in UK public buildings. As host and producer of The Booking Club podcast – a conversation series featuring prominent authors and commentators at their favourite restaurants – Jack continues to engage today’s most distinguished thinkers on the biggest problems pertaining to ideology and power in the 21st century. He joined Global Government Forum as its Senior Staff Writer and Community Co-ordinator in 2021.
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