Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
UK productivity – output per hour worked – in many Western economies has stagnated in recent years, particularly in the UK. A House of Commons Library paper notes: ‘Historically, UK labour productivity has grown by around two per cent per year but since the 2008/2009 recession it has risen more slowly’. In fact, productivity has barely improved at all for a decade ...
Recorded at the Battle of Ideas festival 2024 on Saturday 19 October at Church House, Westminster.
ORIGINAL INTRODUCTION
UK productivity – output per hour worked – in many Western economies has stagnated in recent years, particularly in the UK. A House of Commons Library paper notes: ‘Historically, UK labour productivity has grown by around two per cent per year but since the 2008/2009 recession it has risen more slowly’. In fact, productivity has barely improved at all for a decade and a half. But might artificial intelligence (AI) technologies change all that – particularly in the services sector?
Author and academic Erik Brynjolfsson found that AI assistance could improve productivity by 14 per cent in white-collar occupations. Goldman Sachs has estimated that a quarter of work tasks could be automated by AI, particularly office and administrative work. Other analysts predict a big role for AI in data analysis and content creation. These are mostly predictions or estimates based on specific scenarios. But AI is still in its infancy and there is plenty of scope for systems to improve and for them to be used both more effectively in existing applications and in new ways, too.
However, there are plenty of concerns with AI at the moment, including accuracy of output, data security and issues over copyright in relation to the materials that AI systems learn from. There are also a lot of areas where it is hard to see where AI could make a big difference, such as one-to-one personal services like nursing or hairdressing. There is also the question of how the massive data centres will be powered at a time when Net Zero policies mean cutting energy production rather than raising it is the order of the day. Old-fashioned investment, from better roads to cheaper energy, would seem more obvious ways to reduce costs and labour requirements. Big Tech firms are pouring money into AI – but the returns have been meagre so far.
What will be the impact of AI on the economy? If many jobs in the future will be automated, what happens to the redundant workers? Is this just the latest tech hype that will blow over when rose-tinted expectations aren’t fulfilled – or are we simply at the start of a workplace revolution that will provide new impetus to the economy?
SPEAKERS
Tom Bewick
visiting professor of skills and workforce policy, Staffordshire University; fellow, Royal Society of Arts
Donald Clark
learning tech entrepreneur; investor; professor; author, Learning and the Metaverse; founder, Epic plc; CEO, WildFire
Dr Norman Lewis
visiting research fellow, MCC Brussels; co-author, Big Potatoes: the London manifesto for innovation
Andrew Orlowski
writer and critic; business columnist, Daily Telegraph
CHAIR
Timandra Harkness
journalist, writer and broadcaster; author, Technology is Not the Problem and Big Data: does size matter?; presenter, Radio 4's FutureProofing and How to Disagree
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