Lord Bailey is a member of the London Assembly and a former candidate for Mayor of London.
The AI revolution has arrived and is transforming the world around us.
From supporting doctors to diagnose disease sooner to helping travellers skip long passport queues, AI is changing how we live.
According to experts, AI will soon perform many of the tasks currently undertaken by doctors, lawyers and teachers. It could be as smart as humans in just a few decades.
As the AI revolution gathers pace, we must seize this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape the future. The Mayor of London must ensure London is at the forefront of this charge.
The AI sector employs 50,000 across the UK today and generates £3.7 billion for the national economy. By 2030, the sector is projected to add ten per cent or £250 billion to UK GDP creating thousands of new highly-paid jobs.
London is well-placed to secure these jobs. Our capital is the most important city for AI, outside China and the USA. More than 70 per cent of UK AI firms are based in London and we will soon boast Chat GPT’s first research and development base outside the US.
We need to capitalise on these strong foundations.
Sadiq Khan must urgently convene an AI summit and bring government, business, educators and AI leaders together to develop an AI strategy for London. He should appoint an AI Tsar to champion London to the world.
The Mayor has a £21 billion annual budget from which he could fund further pilots and initiatives.
The Government has shown the way with its £1.5 billion investment in AI. This includes a £500 million investment, announced in the Autumn Statement, in computing for AI to enable universities, scientists and start-ups to maximise their use of AI.
A further £100 million has been allocated to the new Incubator for Artificial Intelligence to support government departments to use AI to improve public service. The Government has previously announced £100 million to accelerate AI innovation to fight cancer, dementia and other diseases, £100 million to tackle previously incurable diseases and £100 million to fund new supercomputers to analyse AI safety.
A new £1 million Manchester Prize for AI researchers will launch later this year. The Government is also investing £2 million in Oak National Academy to develop new AI teaching materials which will provide every teacher with a personalised AI lesson-planning assistance.
The Mayor should establish an AI Development Committee to oversee the implementation of London’s AI strategy.
We all know AI is not without risk. This committee could monitor how AI is impacting our lives and make recommendations to government on any laws or regulations that may be needed.
We must not sleepwalk into a world where this new and exciting technology is allowed to wreak havoc on people’s lives and our communities.
We must act against the real and potential dangers, ensuring terrorists can never use AI to make dirty bombs or allow bad actors to turbocharge cybercrime or cyber attacks.
We need to stamp out the menace of deepfake videos now. I agree with Khan when he said deepfake videos are a ‘slippery slope’ for democracy. Deepfake videos should be illegal. We need to update our laws to outlaw these videos to prevent them becoming potent propoganda tools that destablise society.
Sadly, AI is already being used to develop pornography including child pornography. Our laws are ill-equipped to tackle this menace and need updating urgently.
We need to educate the public on the benefits and risks of AI and prepare for a world of driverless cars. We need to ensure social media giants cannot use AI to further manipulate public opinion.
I strongly believe every human interaction with AI must be explicitly labelled as being AI. We need to know when we’re engaging with another human and when we are not.
The AI revolution offers London and Londoners exciting new opportunities. We must seize this opportunity to shape AI and our futures.