A Cambridge Judge Business School report has celebrated the human element in the workforce just as the government unveils its 50-point plan to put AI at the heart of the UK’s growth strategy.
Expanding the UK’s national AI infrastructure and supporting “homegrown” AI will be at the centre of the government’s plans to embrace the new technology.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer visits the Google AI Campus. Picture: Stefan Rousseau/PA
The key elements of the new drive to develop Britain’s place as a globally-significant AI hub are:
– A 20-fold increase in the amount of AI computing power under public control by 2030, including the development of a brand new “supercomputer” at an as yet undecided location [a report in Data Centre Dynamics says the business case ‘has yet to be drawn up’ for this supercomputer].
– The creation of ‘AI growth zones’ where the government will partner with the private sector “to deliver large amounts of computing power to support key national priorities and create jobs in those areas”. The first site to be confirmed is Culham in Oxfordshire, the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s HQ.
– The acceleration of AI-powered services
– The creation of a National Data Library, a bank of “securely held and managed public sector data, which could be used to support AI research and innovation”
– Energy: AI requires vast amounts of energy. Science Secretary Peter Kyle Kyle and Energy Secretary Ed Miliband will chair an AI Energy Council tasked with understanding the demands and challenges AI presents for energy companies
– Copyright: the government plans to dilute the UK’s regime for copyright, at the risk of undermining the creative and publishing sectors as creatives may be given less protection for their work, whether written, visual or aural.
The government has adopted wholesale the 50-point plan written by tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford, who is an investor in AI including Cambridge start-up Panakeia.
Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer unveiling the AI Opportunity Action PlanPicture: PA
Mr Clifford said: “This is a plan which puts us all-in – backing the potential of AI to grow our economy, improve lives for citizens and make us a global hub for AI investment and innovation.”
Discussions appear to have already taken place with on, for instance, what data the government will allow to be used to train AI models while building a national data library of public sector data. NHS data, if made available, as is currently planned, risks sparking concern from privacy campaigners. The government has said it would “never let anybody have free-range access to it” [NHS patient data], though any offer for even partial access could be incredibly difficult for a cash-strapped government to refuse.
In the civil service overall, new AI-driven services will streamline access and processing – which creates new roles for software engineers while also ensuring that other jobs are lost.
Meanwhile, a new Cambridge Judge Business School report urges policy makers to consider the human side of work in the age of AI. The study is based on a special issue of the academic journal Academy of Management Discoveries on the future of work and suggests our perspective of what work is is “too narrow”.
Professor Jochen Menges is a Cambridge Judge Business School-based Professor of Leadership and Human Resource Management. Picture: CJBS
“We seek a broader, human focus on the future of work, because the fixation on modern technologies such as generative AI can lead scholars, businesses and individuals to adopt a narrow perspective on the future of work based only on technology,” says report co-author Jochen Menges, professor of leadership at Cambridge Judge Business School and the University of Zurich, and one of the guest editors of the special edition of the Academy of Management Discoveries.
“Human imagination is boundless, so why constrain it to technology? By better understanding how humans interact with technological changes rather than only on how tech interacts with people, we can lay the groundwork to accelerate the adoption of helpful and elevating new technologies for the benefit of people.”
Prof Menges concludes: “We suggest moving the question addressed in scholarship from ‘What will the future of work look like?’ to questions like ‘How do human efforts create the future of work?’ and ‘How can humanity be preserved in the future amidst changes?’”