Britain’s technology secretary has warned that the increased deployment of artificial intelligence will lead to the loss of jobs, saying: “I want to level with the public. Some jobs will be lost.”
In a speech on government plans to handle the impact of AI on the British economy, Liz Kendall declined to say how many redundancies the technology might cause, but said: “We know people are worried about graduates entering jobs in places like law and finance.”
He said: “In their place others will be created”.
While some forecasts have suggested that rapidly developing technology could lead to a net increase in employment, Kendall said: “I’m not complacent about that.”
Earlier this month London Mayor Sadiq Khan said that without action to use AI “as a superpower for positive change and creation”, it could become a “weapon of mass destruction of jobs”.
Speaking to an audience of tech and business leaders at Bloomberg headquarters in London, Kendall, the former Work and Pensions Secretary, pledged that Labor would “not leave people to struggle on their own”.
He announced plans to train 10 million British workers in the most basic AI skills by 2030 – including cabinet members – signaling a focus on helping workers adapt to coming changes in labor markets rather than opposing them.
He said the government aims to “make the UK the fastest adopter of AI in the G7” and said jobs would be created around the government’s four AI development areas.
“We are on the cusp of the biggest change in a decade – an industrial revolution (happening),” he said. “We have barely begun to see how this technology will change all of our lives – I believe, for the better.”
Introducing online AI training to millions of workers – including Multiverse, the company founded by Euan Blair, as well as a new program to support women moving into entry-level tech roles – would be “the biggest single plan to improve the country since Harold Wilson Open University”, he said.
A new “Future of Work Unit” is also being set up in the Department of Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) with involvement from trade unions and business leaders.
Ministers have faced criticism that they are relying too heavily on US AI companies, whose models could soon compete with British white-collar workers for jobs. It was announced that a $1 million (£750,000) donation from Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta is being spent on a government initiative to build AI systems for defence, national security and transportation.
Meanwhile, US AI startup Anthropic, valued at $350 billion, has been selected to build and pilot a dedicated assistant tool for public services on gov.uk, starting with a model that will provide career advice to job seekers. It is providing free services. The government also has an MoU with OpenAI, the creator of ChatGPT.
