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Probably42 News - December 2023
Welcome to our December Newsletter! We wish you a very Happy Christmas!
Since our last newsletter the AI Summit has taken place, which was a significant event both in UK and globally. The following were produced as input to or output from the AI Summit. Note that the summit focused on what it calls Frontier AI i.e. the leading edge of AI and General Artificial Intelligence. There are two in particular which we would recommend at least scanning because they are good at bringing you up to date on the state of the art.
- Capabilities and Risks from Frontier AI published in October. This gives both a very good view of both the current state of AI and lists the plethora of risks identified from AI that we will need to deal with.
- Introducing the AI Safety Institute - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk). This is the UK institution which is being set up as part of our AI ecosystem. It’s an excellent paper and gives confidence that we know what we are doing and that the Institute is one of the things we need and is built on what we have already been doing, so people are already in place.
‘AI Opportunity and Complacency’ is an election issue
To quote Elon Musk ‘AI will bring a time when no job is needed’.
It is of concern that no party is as yet voicing any vision or ambition for society from AI, or recognising the impact on jobs and the economy in the short and medium term which needs planning for.
As a result we put forward the following to the main Political Parties and to selected media which captures what we think is necessary to ensure we realise the opportunities and mitigate or avoid the downsides:
- Rishi Sunak’s statement on AI and the AI Safety Institute prior to the AI Summit are welcome initiatives, although belated. However, the answering of media questions after the statement, appeared to demonstrate dangerously complacent thinking with regard to job disruption over the longer term.
The report produced as input to the Prime Minister and to the Summit identifies an ‘unemployment crisis’ as one of the risks emerging as early as 2030. We can argue about the surprisingly short timescale and there will be mitigations we can take, but at a minimum job disruption and at worst a tipping point with net job losses are outcomes we must plan for over the long-term.
Rishi implied that AI would be principally about co-pilots with AI to supplement humans, remove and speed up certain tasks and that AI would generate more AI related jobs. This is all true in the short-term and it is likely that we will have a halcyon period of job growth, alongside substantial productivity improvements. All of which is good for the economy.
There will always be many new jobs created as a result of AI but the important point is that a growing proportion of new jobs created will be AI jobs not human jobs. As well as new 100% AI jobs, our co-pilot AIs will take on more and more of the scope of a job, thereby reducing the human element. Employers are unlikely to want to employ humans to do brand new jobs when AI can do them with better quality and more cheaply from day one. Potentially we will reach a Tipping Point where we start to see a net loss of jobs but certainly we will see substantial job disruption first, as old jobs disappear and people have to re-train perhaps two or three times in their lives.
The good news is that when you start planning there are things you can do to turn these downsides into an opportunity and any party, but particularly Labour, could show real ambition in line with their traditional values by:
Formalising a National Contract to commit to ‘AI Deployment for the good of all’ over the long-term – taking a societal perspective, not just a business-led perspective. This would include:
- Establishing a ‘National Productivity Fund’ and National Dividend to citizens to tangibly share UK success.
- Gradually reducing the working week while maintaining income levels, geared to national productivity improvement as AI is deployed.
Establishing a productivity culture around this, because improving productivity is the one thing that allows improvement in incomes, profits and Government tax take all at the same time i.e. everyone wins.
The future can be good but only if we plan properly for the longer term i.e for the next 20-25 years.
Recent Discussions
The outputs of our discussions since the last newsletter are at Migration - Global Impacts and The Misinformation Society - Fact or Fiction.
Forthcoming Discussions
With political parties beginning to position themselves for the next election and the increasing profile of Reform UK, the background and agenda for our next topic can be seen at Topic for December 2023 - Impact of Reform UK on the next election
Government Information that may interest you
As usual we highlight more examples of information on Parliament activity and outputs which may interest you:
- Autumn Statement from Jeremy Hunt Autumn Statement 2023 - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- Generative artificial intelligence in education call for evidence - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk) .
Why not join a Group?
If you’d like to join one of the Probably42 discussion groups held via videoconferencing, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you more details. We very much want a diversity of viewpoints, so you can be sure your views will be welcomed. Remember it’s about relaxed discussion and having an enjoyable time, with hopefully some useful ideas identified.
We also want to encourage face-to-face real world discussion groups, as feeders into the main online discussions. If you’d like to find out more about the one in Berkshire, or if you’d like to see one start in your area, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you details.
Feedback
We always welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas or questions about Probably42. Simply reply to this newsletter and you’ll receive a personal reply.
All the best
Tony