The Labour party aims to grow the economy by 0.5% by enabling businesses and the public sector to deploy artificial intelligence (AI) technology.
Shadow Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP said yesterday that AI could increase the headroom on the government’s fiscal headroom by £72 billion within five years.
“If there is 0.5% productivity growth out there as a result of currently available digital technology, by hook or by crook I will deliver it,” he said.
But he acknowledged that the Labour party would need to address people’s fears over the risks posed by AI, particularly fears over its impact on jobs.
Kyle said he found it incredible that the deputy prime minister, Oliver Dowden is touting AI as a way to cut jobs in the civil service at a time when government researched showed the public were pessimistic about the impact of AI.
“It is not surprising that pessimism among the general public is getting worse. And pessimism will lead to less adoption [in the UK] as other countries race ahead with adopting AI across their economies,” he said.
The shadow technology spokesman said that AI had the potential to benefit workers, companies, employers and the country as a whole but that it would not happen without a coherent strategy.
He said that a key part of Labour’s AI strategy would be for the government to build-up trust with the public by being open and transparent about its own use of AI and algorithms.
“The government has a democratic right to explanation and information about how the government makes its decisions,” he said.
He lambasted the government for failing to meet its meet its commitments to explain its use of algorithms for decision making in Whitehall to the public.
The government’s Algorithmic Transparency Recording Standard Hub has only published one public report this year and did not publish any in 2023, he said.
This was “clearly unacceptable” when the Cabinet Office and the government’s AI Incubator alone is running 10 AI pilot projects including using AI to identify fraud and error in pharmacies and to more asylum seekers out of hotel accommodation more efficiently.
“There is a clear need for government to provide more information about its use of AI in such sensitive areas,” he said.
“If it looks like the government is trying to hide how AI is being used that is bad for trust across the county and trust will become unease and stop the growth that we need to see,” he added.
A Labour government would commit to transparency about how it uses AI and it would require companies developing the most advanced forms of AI, known frontier AI to produce safety reports.
Kyle said that Labour would also create a regulatory innovation office to ensure that regulators can keep pace with fast moving developments in AI and other technology.
The government would set time-based targets for giving regulatory decisions, benchmark the performance of regulators against international competitors.
“It will make sure that regulation does not unnecessarily slow down innovation,” he said.
A priority would be to support the use of “everyday AI” in small businesses as well as supporting “the next 10 Deep Minds through their startup and scale-up in the UK.”
“It means ensuring that the UK public sector is a leader in responsible transparency, transparently applying AI rather than veering from extreme risk to extreme optimism as the current government is doing,” he said.
Labour’s industrial strategy would set out clear priorities for the next ten years – the first time a political party has committed to a decade long industrial programme – and would “catapult” key areas the economy.
The shadow secretary of state said that he recognized that AI could have significant impact on the workforces of some companies and industrial sectors.
“I want to be very explicit about how we can make this disruption a positive disruption for our economy and its workforces,” he said.
“I am very aware of what happened in the 1980s. There was negative disruption in the workforce and a government that absented itself from any responsibility from shaping what came next,” he added.
A Labour government would work in partnership with trade unions and employers. “We won’t hide from it,” he said.
In the US, according to Kyle, one in four small businesses are using AI but in Britain half of small businesses are not aware of AI, he told a conference organised by the technology trade group TechUK.
“We have to start by reassuring the public we are being transparent about what we are doing and to have a public debate,” he added.