Britain’s Keir Starmer Needs to Curb His AI Enthusiasm
Doubling down on the country’s strong regulatory leadership on AI would be smarter than chasing a vague and uncertain industrial policy.
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer.
Photographer: Leon Neal/Getty Images EuropeUK Prime Minister Keir Starmer wants the country to be a trailblazer for artificial intelligence. This makes sense in theory for a place that gave the world computing icons like Alan Turing, Ada Lovelace and Tim Berners-Lee — but a lot of his plan doesn’t.
One of the UK’s greatest strengths is its role as a fast, thoughtful regulator on technology, often striking a sensible middle ground between America’s regulatory vacuum and the European Union’s stifling bureaucracy. Starmer says Britain should be more than that, touting AI this week as a springboard for growth that could lift the UK’s productivity by 1.5% and add £47 billion ($57.2 billion) to the economy. Yet the lengthy plans he sketched out for that number are vague and don’t account for the fact that financial benefits of tech revolutions often take years to manifest. An intervention of this kind, which will cost £14 billion, also looks unwise as the UK faces serious public spending pressures.