The Government launched its plan to make the UK a global AI superpower. BCS experts and the community reacted, as Claire Penketh, BCS’ Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager, reports.
In his speech responding to the AI Opportunities Action Plan, the Prime Minister was upbeat about AI's potential to transform the UK economy. Tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford, on behalf of the Government, drafted the plan with 50 recommendations.
Sir Keir Starmer mentioned how AI could potentially revolutionise public services — it could help speed up the diagnosis of ailments, for instance, and cut NHS waiting lists. Schools would also benefit, and teachers' workloads could be reduced.
He was keen to highlight the need for skilled professionals to deliver such a transformation and said he wanted to grow ‘tomorrow’s talent’ in the UK.
One of the key findings in the Action Plan for BCS, as the professional body for IT, is that the UK will need to ‘train tens of thousands of additional AI professionals across the technology stack to meet expected demand and proactively increase its share of the world’s top 1,000 AI researchers.’ It aims to achieve this increase by 2030.
The government agreed with the Action Plan’s recommendations to support higher education institutions in increasing the number of AI graduates, widening the diverse talent pool and expanding education pathways into AI, such as apprenticeships and lifelong learning.
Annette Allmark, Director of BCS Learning and Development, said: ‘As an end-point assessment organisation for digital apprenticeships, we know the value this career path has when engaging a diverse range of people, including more female professionals. We have seen significant demand for the Level 7 AI Data Specialist apprenticeship. We know higher-level apprenticeships are extremely important to building a digital talent pipeline, which we hope the government will continue to support.’
Dr Bill Mitchell OBE, BCS Fellow, said: ‘The AI Opportunities Action Plan aligns closely with our position that upskilling and professionalising the UK workforce in AI is essential for driving innovation and economic growth.
‘Based on the government-commissioned AI Skills for Business Competency Framework, we estimate that around 60% of the UK workforce currently lacks the skills to use AI responsibly.
‘While the UK boasts world-class AI degree programmes and outstanding digital apprenticeships, both need support to meet the growing demand for tens of thousands of skilled AI practitioners yearly.
‘As the Government rightly expands these higher education and apprenticeship pipelines, it must also recognise the vital role professional bodies play in growing grassroots AI communities of practice, supporting the continuous upskilling and reskilling of the wider workforce.’
Diversity and inclusion
Diversity is an issue in the tech sector, where, on average, women make up only around 20 per cent of the workforce, and the Action Plan recommended that this be addressed. Julia Adamson, MD for Education and Public Benefit at BCS, said: ‘We welcome the focus on increasing diversity in the technology talent pool. This is a positive move to boost female representation in the tech sector, and by doing so, we could also effectively bridge the skills gap. It’s not only the ethical and responsible thing to do — it would greatly impact expanding the talent pipeline.’
Julia Adamson said: ‘Studying computing needs to be relevant to a much wider student audience. We need to prioritise modifying what and how we teach computing at all phases of education so that it is relevant to all learners. We hope the government will heed our calls to reform the curriculum so that it is fit for purpose in the age of AI.’
Computing power
The plan hopes to see a 20-fold increase in AI computing power under public control by 2030. To answer this, the government will set up AI Growth Zones areas nationwide to build data centres rapidly. Sir Keir vowed to ‘remove blockages’ around decisions on location and planning permission.
John Booth, data centre expert and Vice Chair of the Green IT BCS Specialist Group, said: ‘The government faces the issue of sourcing the power needed to fuel the new data centres — which will probably initially have to come from fossil fuels.
‘Balancing that with the UK’s existing climate goals needs to be carefully thought through if we are going to both achieve Net Zero and boost AI to drive growth and innovation.
‘The UK needs additional generation and distribution capacity, which is part of the National Grid’s ‘Great Grid Upgrade’. The Government is taking active steps to address the supply problem via changes to the provisioning system, but this has a timescale issue.’
Data sharing, safety and trust
Responding to privacy worries around how data will be shared and used to train AI models, especially around health, the PM said we had to look through the ‘lens of opportunity’ and that ‘brilliant breakthroughs’ had happened because we had been able to use the data available in this country. He added, ‘Obviously we need to stay in control of the data. And we will.’
BCS Fellow and Healthcare expert Hema Purohit advised the Government to tread carefully: ‘Using our data to train AI models is not alarming, but rushing will cause problems and issues. First and foremost, we need a clear roadmap of tangible and achievable goals and outcomes.
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‘Data use must be anonymised, have consent and be explicit so that citizens are always aware of strictly which data is being used and where.
‘Use of citizen data will also depend on data storage, use of data centres and retention. While citizen data may need to be used initially to train AI models, generative AI can now produce synthetic data for training purposes at high volumes, so we should look at a model that combines the two.
‘Finally, this plan will only be successful where public sector employees have the right training to use the tools the PM wants to put in their hands. This means an investment in education and training that needs to start now.’
Public buy in
The Prime Minister’s upbeat rhetoric around the transformative powers of AI is a far cry from a time not so long ago when many perceived AI as an existential threat. Whilst AI can achieve much that is positive, there are downsides, and they have to be tackled too, says BCS Fellow Sarah Burnett, author of The Autonomous Enterprise: Powered by AI. ‘There are challenges as AI-powered business processes become automated, leading to job losses and unemployment, even in tech.’
BCS Fellow Professor Bernd Stahl, co-author of the report: Living with AI and emerging technologies: Meeting ethical challenges through professional standards, said to succeed, the government has to get the public’s buy-in: ‘This plan will only lead to the intended results if the British people recognise that they benefit.’
Professor Stahl said: ‘The plan should… incorporate actions that promote a joined-up, ethically aware development and use of AI, which should cover all parts of the ecosystem, including ethics training for AI practitioners, appropriate accountability and liability mechanisms, strong professional standards and bodies and transparent democratic oversights, to name just a few pillars of a successful and ethically acceptable action plan.’
