In a bid to boost economic growth and free up capacity in the public sector, Sir Keir Starmer has thrown the full weight of Whitehall behind a new plan to make Britain an “AI superpower”.
At a press conference today, the prime minister unveiled his government’s AI Opportunity Action Plan in a big to promote the UK as a world leader in the artificial intelligence industry.
While he recognised people’s concerns about this rapidly developing technology, Starmer said: “The far bigger risk is we don’t go for it, and we’re left behind by those who do.”
The government’s new strategy takes forward all 50 recommendations set out by tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford, who was commissioned by science and technology secretary Peter Kyle in July to come up with a plan to identify AI opportunities.
It will see the government create a series of AI “growth zones”, starting in Culham, Oxfordshire, and the building of a new supercomputer in a bid to increase the UK’s computing capacity 20-fold by 2030.
As well as reaping the economic benefits of this growing industry, the plan also aims to improve public services across the board, with the prime minister writing to all of his ministers to ask them to incorporate more AI in their sectors.
Here, Yahoo News breaks down how the government’s new AI action plan will affect the public services we use.
Hospitals and GP surgeries
Starmer has insisted that AI can be used to improve efficiency in the NHS by reducing the amount of paperwork being filled in by doctors and nurses and giving them more time to get on with the “human element” of the job.
By picking up tasks such as note taking, AI can free up time for GPs to speak to their patients, and can also be used to reduce hospital waiting lists by identifying people most likely to miss their appointments and helping them find a time that works best for them.
AI could be used to identify people most likely to miss the appointments and help them rearrange. (Alamy)
Giving an example of how AI is already being used in the health service, Starmer told a story of doctors using AI to quickly identify the exact location of a blood clot in a woman’s brain in just a few minutes. It is also being used to help diagnose cancer earlier.
Part of the government’s AI strategy is to create a National Data Library, which would allow public sector data assets to support AI research, raising some concerns about people’s health data.
Asked about these concerns at today’s conference at UCL East, Starmer said the best way to protect people’s health data is to “keep control of it”.
The government its National Data Library, and its wider data access policy, will be “underpinned by strong privacy-preserving safeguards”, with more details to be set out “in due course”.
Potholes
Another example of how AI could be used to change people’s everyday lives is its ability to spot potholes more quickly than the human eye.
AI would be fed into cameras to help identify potholes as they emerge and to prioritise road repairs.
Could AI provide the solution to the UK’s pothole problem. (Alamy)
However, social media users were quick to point out that plenty of people already identify and report potholes themselves and are still left frustrated by how long it takes for them to be fixed.
They suggested that the issue here could be more down to funding for local authorities, rather than technology.
AI is already starting to be used in this field, with last year’s development of the Autonomous road repair system (ARRES), an AI-powered autonomous vehicle being used by Hertfordshire County Council that detects and seals road surface cracks to prevent potholes from forming.
Schools
Similarly to hospitals, Starmer said that AI can be used to drive down admin for teachers so they can focus on teaching children instead.
“If you’re sitting around the kitchen table tonight worrying about the opportunities at your children’s school, AI can help teachers plan a lesson tailored to your children’s specific needs,” he added.
The PM said AI can be used to tailor personalised lesson plans and reduce time spent on admin by teachers. (PA)
In August the government announced that teaching standards, guidelines and lesson plans would be used to form a new “optimised content store”.
This pool of information, also including anonymous pupil assessments, is to be used by AI companies to train their tools to generate “accurate, high-quality content”, such as tailored, creative lesson plans and workbooks, which can then be reliably used in schools.
Planning
Starmer also said that AI could be used to speed up planning applications, although he did not go into the specifics of how this would work.
However, one part of the government’s AI strategy involves removing barriers to planning for the building of AI infrastructure.
The country’s first ever “AI Growth Zones” will be set up under the plan, which will see planning approvals sped up for the “rapid” building of data centres with better access to the energy grid in a bid to draw investment from around the world.
The first of these growth zones will be in Culham, Oxfordshire – home to the UK’s Atomic Energy Authority and some of the brightest scientific minds in the world, the government said.
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