THere is a time Britain wants to be the leader in technology. These days, it seems to be the content of being a spontaneous supplier – providing the data, infrastructure and public service to the US tech giant in exchange for the promise of several percent points of acquired efficiency. Concerned, the artificial approach to Sir Keir Starmer’s government’s intelligence appears to be long in rhetoric, short of sovereignty and built on techno-utopian assumptions. Last week, Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, promoted the use of letters that release AI-generated in the NHS. The tech, he said, will process complex conversations between doctors and patients, falling into papers and streaming services. Ministers said that by applying AI to the entire public sector, the government could save £ 45bn.
But the step back and a more familiar pattern appeared. As Cecilia Rikili, a researcher at University College London, said in the political theory that other podcasts, the risks to Britain became a satellite of the US tech industry-a country that public infrastructure served primarily as a land test and data resource for American AI models hosted on US cloud computing networks. He warned that the UK should not be a site of “extractivism”, which is the value – whether in the form of knowledge, labor or electricity – is provided by Britain but that -monetized in the US.
Not only the UK is lacking in a domestic cloud ecosystem. It is the government’s approach that nothing has been done to form one. Remembering is that public data, most of which are drawn from the NHS and local authorities, will be shared on models built and trained overseas. The amount obtained from that data – be it in the form of model refinement or product development – is not publicly available to the British, but in US shareholders. Even the promise of creating a job appears to be trembling. The datacentres, the physical spine of AI, are enthusiastic, hungry energy, and each one uses only 50 people.
Meanwhile, Daron Acemoglu, MIT Economist and Nobel Laureate, offers a more sad look: far from curiosity at a golden age of raising work, AI’s now control is focused on almost all of the removal of labor. Prof Acemoglu sees a fork: workers can empower – or replace them. So far, it does the latter. Minister’s promises of productivity earned can mean only fewer jobs – no better services.
The deeper problem is one of the imagination. A serious government about digital sovereignty can build a public cloud, fund open sources of AI models and create institutions capable of steering wheel in technological development towards social endings. Instead, we are offered efficiency-by-outsourcing-an AI approach where Britain provides inputs and America to reap returns. In a 2024 paper, Prof Acemoglu challenged Goldman Sachs’ forecasts that AI will lead to a global growth of 7%-about $ 7TN-and estimated to be under $ 1TN in the acquisitions. Most of these will be available by US Big Tech.
There is nothing wrong with using new technologies. But their deployment should not be outlined in a way that enters dependency and hollows out public. The online Safety Act shows digital sovereignty can implement national policies on global platforms, especially on porn sites. But the current excitement at Alan Turing Institute suggests a deeper fact: the UK government is dazzling American AI and has no clear plan of itself. Britain’s dangers are not a tech pioneer, but a good client management in someone else’s digital empire.
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