A.I.

Are politicians' AI dreams making them the electric sheep?

What Keir Starmer’s recent policy announcements show about his hopes and fears for AI, and the potential folly of his FOMO

Government and industry leaders gathered in Paris this week for the AI Action Summit. It was (overtly) an attempt by the Macron presidency to build a global consensus on the trajectory of the technology, and (somewhat implicitly) an attempt by the embattled French leader to position his country as a leader in the field. It failed to build consensus, but it did manage to succeed in hammering home the point that AI is as much (if not more) about power and politics as it is LLMs and processing power.

Battle of the Big Boys

A lot has been written about the power struggle at the top of the geopolitical food chain to control AI and, by assumed extension, the future. That battle is mostly happening between the US, China, and the EU.

J. D. Vance’s speech at the Summit neatly summarised the US view on this battle; he attacked both China (for selling tech to authoritarian states) and Europe (for over-regulating and not being pro-innovation). The US, by contrast, would prioritise “pro-growth” policies. He then promptly refused to join the summit photo, and also declined to sign on to the Summit’s declaration, which was signed by 60 nations, including many European countries and China.

The FOMO folly of Keir

While the superpower battles are dominating media debates, something interesting is happening further down the food chain, at the geo-political equivalent of middle management. Here the UK is such an interesting test case.

The UK Government also refused to sign onto the Summit declaration. While the Prime Minster’s spokesperson insisted that the UK’s decision was independent of the US decision, The Guardian reported:

a Labour MP said: “I think we have little strategic room but to be downstream of the US.” They added that US AI firms could stop engaging with the UK government’s AI Safety Institute, a world-leading research body, if Britain was perceived to be taking an overly restrictive approach to the development of the technology.

We could dismiss this as The Guardian being The Guardian, if it were not for what Keir Starmer’s recent policy commitments show about his hopes and fears for AI.

The UK is in serious economic trouble, and Starmer seems to have bought the hype that AI can solve the UK’s productivity, public service and economic growth problems. But rather than attempt to win the geopolitical race, he appears to be more focused on not being left behind, and on getting a cut of the spoils by backing the right winner.

Last month No. 10 launched a new AI strategy just one week after a disastrous bond market sell off, the latest in a series of moments cementing a picture of economic decline. Starmer’s announcement that “Artificial intelligence will be unleashed across the UK to deliver a decade of national renewal” drips with FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). He says that AI will fix all of Britain’s problems - in education, health, small business growth, even putting “money in people’s pockets” - but, he says:

“the AI industry needs a government that is on their side, one that won’t sit back and let opportunities slip through its fingers. And in a world of fierce competition, we cannot stand by. We must move fast and take action to win the global race.”

On a path to dependency

If this were just a mid-sized economy drinking the Kool-Aid on a new technology, that may or may not pay off, we could leave it at that. But it is not. This is one of many nation states ceding unprecedented political power to private corporations to set the agenda on regulation that spans everything from health care to labour rights to speech governance. It is also national systems putting in place dependencies that both buy into the idea of, and to some extent bank on, these same companies succeeding in transforming our economies.

We are seeing AI path dependency everywhere - from every app that used to be useful now being clogged with useless AI features that companies have invested in and feel compelled to deploy, to decisions locking in infrastructure that is tied into this as yet unrealised revolution.

Nowhere is this more clear than Starmer’s celebration, highlighted in his announcement of the “AI Opportunities Action Plan”, of a £12 Billion investment by a data centre firm in the UK.

This, he confidently pronounces, will lead to the creation of 11,500 jobs.

That is one (yes one) job per approx. £1,000,000 of investment.