UK PM Starmer plans to 'unleash AI' to boost growth — but will it work? - video Dailymotion

CGTN Europe

CGTN Europe interviewed Tim Flagg, Chief operating officer of UKAI

Transcript

00:00Well let's get more on this now with Tim Flagg who is Chief Operating Officer at UKAI, a trade

00:06body representing British AI businesses. Tim thank you very much for being with us on the programme

00:11today, you must be delighted. It's a really momentous day for the AI sector in the UK yes,

00:18I think seeing the bold and the ambitious plans which are outlined by the Prime Minister and Matt

00:22Clifford today it is exciting. Great and I just want to ask you about a point that Jen was just

00:28saying about regulation and Britain going its own way on regulation, what do you think that

00:32means and what is the industry hoping for on that front with regulation? Yeah so it's a really

00:39interesting time right now because the EU has obviously published the EU AI Act and that has

00:44been quite a rigid framework of regulation. The US on the opposite end had some regulation and

00:52that has now been or will be rescinded we think by Trump coming in so there's going to be a very

00:56much more laissez-faire approach to regulation in the US and UK is in the process of defining

01:03what will be in the AI bill so it's a unique opportunity to find a middle ground, that's

01:08a sort of sweet spot that Peter Kyle the Secretary of State was referring to a couple of days ago

01:13and it is a real opportunity for us to get this right. I think we will have alignment with a lot

01:19of the good stuff in the EU AI Act but we'll have the flexibility that businesses need to be able

01:24to innovate and not be hamstrung by too much rigid framework and on that point as well I think

01:32you know London can lead. London has got fantastic legal firms, deep experience in this field that

01:38could really make London the centre for AI regulation in the world. Well it certainly

01:45sounds very exciting, the numbers are very exciting, just how much AI could transform

01:49the British economy. The Institute for Public Policy Research think tank saying that AI could

01:54lead to economic gains worth up to something like 300 billion dollars a year annually.

01:59How realistic is that? How can that be measured and how much is it going to cost? This is very

02:04energy hungry technology isn't it? Yeah I think there's two really interesting questions in that.

02:10The first is, is it realistic? And actually we've published a report which looks at the impact on

02:17GDP that the AI sector can have and actually over the next five years we've calculated that it could

02:23contribute up to one trillion extra in GDP by 2030. So you know that's it's a significant

02:29amount but to your question about how are we going to do that and how that's going to come,

02:34well I think today has been a really important step to really give the, for the government to

02:40give their commitment and to set out this plan and a very clear direction of travel. There's

02:44no mistake about the direction they want to go in and it gives business and investors more

02:49importantly the confidence to invest in the UK. And then on that sort of second question you had

02:54then about you know the energy, how are we actually going to be able to afford to create the energy?

03:00Energy is one of the or could be one of the limiting factors here. So I think that's a really

03:05interesting angle and we're putting out a report later this week that actually looks at the cost

03:09of energy. It's skyrocketed in the UK versus other countries and you know whilst that's good from an

03:16environmental perspective because it's paying for all the renewables which are being brought online,

03:20it actually could be very restrictive for the growth of the AI sector as that grows. So

03:25we need AI to find solutions, so algorithmically being able to make the data centres much more

03:32energy inefficient. We need to use that heat that's generated for secondary purposes as well.

03:37There are solutions but yeah I think that is something that has to be addressed very quickly.

03:41Okay Tim well I'm afraid we're out of time but fascinating stuff, great to get your input today

03:45on this news. Tim Flagg, Chief Operating Officer at UKAI, many thanks.

UK PM Starmer plans to 'unleash AI' to boost growth — but will it work?

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