Facts versus F-wits: how to fight the Alt Reich
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Hi, this is Pod Save the UK. I'm Coco Khan.
And I'm Nishka Ma. On today's show, can AI save the UK?
So I've just asked ChatGPT and apparently it can. AI can revitalise the UK by driving economic growth, improving public services and advancing sustainability through innovation, efficiency and strategic investment in technology, digital skills and arsenic. I made that last bit up. Just labour the point that you can't trust them.
You are not given enough credit for the quality of your voice work. Thank you. Your range of accents is beyond compare.
Someone actually had to say to me recently, you should just be careful about the range of actions that you do because you might start to offend people. So I think I'm safe with this one.
Well, write in and let us know, American listeners. How happy were you with that accent? To find out what this means for the United Kingdom, we're joined by technology journalist Chris Stoke-Walker.
And with the far-right surging all over the world, we'll also be chatting to systems theorist and investigative journalist Nafis Ahmed about how to fight it.
And later, we'll be sharing your thoughts on Elon Musk's unwelcome interventions into British politics.
AI isn't something sort of 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.
Prime Minister Keir Starmer there announcing his AI gambit to the media. So what's the fuss all about? The government is calling it the AI Opportunities Action Plan. And as we heard there, Starmer is hoping artificial intelligence will turbocharge growth, which is a marked evolution from last year's rhetoric, where former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak was most focused on AI safety.
And of course, this song and dance about growth and opportunity conveniently comes at the same time as the government is staring down some grim economic forecasts. So joining us now to make sense of what the AI plan actually means is technology journalist and the author of How AI Ate the World, Chris Stoke-Walker. Welcome, Chris. Thanks, Nish.
Thanks, Coco.
Yeah.
Yeah, weird U-turn, isn't it? Yeah, we had the Splechley Park Summit around about 18 months ago, where we were told the Terminator is coming to life and we should all prepare for it. And now, suddenly, everything is rosy. AI safety has turned into AI opportunities, but let's also really quietly whisper about the jobs that are going to be displaced. And we should all embrace it. We're going to become AI junkies, according to the government. We were meant to be mainlining AI into our veins as a country or something weird like that. So we're going to be shambling from one thing to another, seeking the next buzz from artificial intelligence, it seems.
I think too many people watch Trainspotting in Cabinet, don't they?
Oh, you can't spell Trainspotting without AI.
Oh, very good. Very good.
Just to start us off here, what has the government actually announced in terms of this AI opportunities action plan? What's the protein?
Yeah, sorry, I was busy making jokes to actually not answer the question, which is... I'm normally too busy making jokes to ask the question, Chris.
So like, actually, in many ways, you're the absolute perfect guest for the show.
We'll share the load across all three of us. Yeah, basically what happened was back in July-ish last year, the government commissioned this guy called Matt Clifford, who is this venture capitalist. He's kind of the go-to tech person when the government wants to solve the problem. Because obviously one of the issues that we have is government works incredibly slow. It is incredibly expensive. sclerotic, it doesn't necessarily always get to grips with the latest technologies. So they have to bring in people who do understand this and are at the cutting edge of this. So they asked Matt Clifford to basically come up with a plan. They said, we don't currently have a plan for what to do about AI. We've heard about ChatGPT.
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