It’s full steam ahead for the adoption of AI to "turbocharge growth” said the Prime Minister, Keir Starmer in his speech in response to the unveiling of the AI Opportunities Action Plan. Our experts’ and community gave their reactions to Claire Penketh, BCS’ Senior Policy and Public Affairs Manager.
The Prime Minister was upbeat about the power of AI to transform the UK economy and life in general in his speech responding to the AI Opportunities Action Plan. It was drawn up by tech entrepreneur Matt Clifford, on behalf of the Government, and comes up 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 too would benefit, and the workload of teachers could be reduced.
He was keen to highlight that skilled professionals are needed 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 to increase the numbers of AI graduates, widen the diversity talent pool, and expand education pathways into AI, such as apprenticeships and lifelong learning.
Annette Allmark, Director, BCS Learning and Development said: “As an end-point assessment organisation for digital apprenticeships, we know the value this career path has when it comes to engaging a diverse range of people, including more female professionals. We have seen significant demand for the Level 7 AI Data Specialist apprenticeship and know how higher-level apprenticeships are considered extremely important to build 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 needed to use AI responsibly in the workplace.
"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 each year.
“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."
D&I
Diversity is an issue in the tech sector, where, on average, women make up only around 20 percent of the work force, and the Action Plan recommended that this needed to 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 right ethical and responsible thing to do – it would have a huge impact on expanding the talent pipeline.”
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BCS analysis of Department for Education data found that 94% of girls and 79% of boys in England drop computing as soon as they can, at 14 years old. Which means greater diversity and training tens of thousands of STEM graduates by 2030 will be extraordinary hard to achieve at speed but should be achievable over time.
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 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 will see a 20-fold increase in the amount of AI computing power under public control by 2030 and deploy AI across almost every aspect of society. Another major announcement in Sir Keir’s speech was data center projects worth £14 billion. The government says it will set up AI Growth Zones areas across the country for the rapid build-out of data centers. 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 UK’s existing climate goals needs to be carefully thought through if we are going to achieve Net Zero and boost AI to drive growth and innovation.
“The UK needs additional generation and distribution capacity, and this 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 the AI models, especially around health the PM said we had to look through the “through the lens of opportunity” and that “brilliant breakthroughs” had happened because we have 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 in itself is not alarming, but rushing will cause problems and issues. We need a clear roadmap of tangible and achievable goals and outcomes first and foremost.
“Data use must be anonymised, have consent and be explicit so that citizens is aware at all times of exactly which data is being used and where.
“Use of citizen data in itself will also have a dependency on data storage, use of data centres and retention. And 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 be able 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 AI was perceived by many 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.
“For example, I hear a lot of software developers are being let go - is it to do with generative AI's ability to write code? I'm not sure it is, but it is possible. The government must help retrain displaced workers at the same time as boosting the AI talent pipeline.”
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.
“This means that economic growth must be fair, equitable and support the weakest in society, not just the big Tech companies.
“Ethical concerns should thus be the centrepiece of the plan. AI safety and security form part of this, but the plan should incorporate broader ethical questions and participatory mechanisms to address them. The ethical qualities of AI are not just part of the technology or its use, but they are strongly influenced by the AI ecosystem as a whole.
“The plan should therefore incorporate actions that promote a joint-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.”
BCS will continue to explore our expert members reactions to the government’s AI strategy as it develops. If you want to join in the conversation, email us at bcspolicy@bcs.uk
