With the rapid trend of artificial intelligence being incorporated in almost all the jobs, protecting jobs in Britain now seems like a challenge, as analyzed by the new head of the state-authorized AI taskforce.
According to Ian Hogarth, a tech entrepreneur and AI investor, it was “inevitable” that more jobs would turn increasing automated.
He further urged businesses and individuals the need to reconsider how they work.
"There will be winners or losers on a global basis in terms of where the jobs are as a result of AI," he said.
There have already been numerous reports of jobs that are losing their status of being ‘manual’, as companies are now increasing adopting AI tools rather than recruiting individuals. One recent instance was when BT stated “it will shed around 10,000 staff by the end of the decade as a result of the tech.”
However, some experts believe that these advancements in the job sector will also result in the emergence of new job options that do exist currently, similar to the time when the internet was newly introduced.
Validating this point is a report released by Goldman Sachs earlier this year, which noted 60% of the jobs we aware of today did not exist in 1940.
What are the Benefits?
According to Hogarth, the aim of the newly assigned taskforce was to help government "to better understand the risks associated with these frontier AI systems" and to hold the companies accountable.
Apparently, he was concerned about the possibility of AI posing harm, such as wrongful detention if applied to law enforcement or the creation of dangerous software that encourages cybercrime.
He said that, “expert warnings of AI's potential to become an existential threat should not be dismissed, even though this divides opinion in the community itself.”
However, he did not dismiss the benefits that comes with these technologies.
One of them being the advancements in the healthcare sector. AI tools are not all set to identify new antibiotics, helping patients with brain damage regain movements and aiding medical professional by identifying early symptoms of diseases.
According to Mr. Hogarth, he developed a tool that could spot breast cancer symptoms in a scan.
To monitor AI safety research, the group he will head has been handed an initial £100 million. Although he declined to reveal how he planned to use the funds, he did declare that he would know he had succeeded in the job if "the average person in the UK starts to feel a benefit from AI."
What are the Challenges
UK’s Prime Minister Rishi Sunak has set AI as a key priority, wanting to make UK to become a global hub for the sector.
Following this revelation, OpenAI, the company behind the very famous chatbot ChatGPT is all set to build its first international office in London. Also, data firm Palantir has also confirmed that they will open their headquarters in London.
But for the UK to establish itself as a major force in this profitable and constantly growing sector of technology, there are a number of obstacles it will have to tackle.
One instance comes from an AI start-up run by Emma McClenaghan and her partner Matt in Northern Ireland. They have created an AI tool named ‘Wally,’ which generates websites. The developers aspire to turn Wally into a more general digital assistance.
While the company – Gensys Engine – has received several awards and recognition, it still struggle getting the specialized processors, or GPUs (graphics processing units). They need to continue developing the product further.
In regards to this, Emma says, "I think there is a lack of hardware access for start-ups, and a lack of expertise and lack of funding.”
She said they waited five months for a grant to buy a single GPU - at a time when in the US Elon Musk was reported to have purchased 10,000.
"That's the difference between us and them because it's going to take us, you know, four to seven days to train a model and if he's [able to] do it in minutes, then you know, we're never going to catch up," she added.
In an email chat, McClenaghan noted that she thinks the best outcome for her company would be if it gets acquired by some US tech giant, something commonly heard from a UK startup.
This marks another challenge for the UK: to refocus on keeping prosperous companies in the UK and fostering their expansion.
