The Guardian view on Britain’s AI strategy: the risk is that it is dependency dressed up in digital hype | Editorial

THere was a time that Britain is strived to be a leader in technology. These days it seems satisfied to move a willed – delivered about his dataInfrastructure and public services to our Tech Giants in return for the promise of a few percentage points of efficiency profit. Worry appear the government of the artificial intelligent of Sir Keir stars Long on Retorica, short on sovereignty and built on Techno-utopian assumptions. Peter Kyle last week, the technology secretary was promote The use of Ai-generated discharge letters in the NHS. The tech said, he said, will process complex calls between Doctors and patients, slashing paperwork and streaming services. Ministers say that by applying AI on the public sector may save the government £ 45bn.

But step back and a more trusted pattern comes out. As Cecilia RikapA research at University College London told The Politics Theory Other Podcast, Britain, whose public infrastructure serves as a Salesherve source for US AI models hosted on US property of the US property. They warned that the UK should not be a site of 'extractivism “, in which value – or in the form of knowledge or electricity has been provided by Britain, but moneted in the USA.

It is not just that the UK is missing a pet ecosystem. It is that the government's strategy does nothing to build one. The care is that public data, many of the drawn from the NHS and local authorities, will be pushed in models built and trained. The value conquered from that data – Whether in the form of model of model removal or product development – will not give up on the British audience, but to US stock holders. Even the promising of job creation appears shaky. DATACENTRES, AI physical loans are capitalent-Se, Enery-Hungry, and every one that is all that 50 people.

Meanwhile Daron Acemoglu, the with ecomistics and Nobel Laureate, offers An even more sobering view: far of using a golden age of labor of a golden old is the AI rollout today in the contrary. Prof Acemoglu syes A fork: AI can empower workers – or replace them. Right now, it does the last. Productivities Ministerial-Attaches of Productivities may mean fewer jobs – not better services.

The deeper problem is one of imagination. A government seriously over Digital Sovereignty May build a public cloud, Fund public AI models and make institutions to send Technological development to Social Ends. Instead, we are offered efficiency-by-outsourcing – an AI-strategy where Britain provides the inputs and America the returns Risers. In a 2024 paperPROCOGUL ACEMOGLU CHALGED GoldMan Sachs '10 -Year-forecast That would lead to Global growth of 7%. $ 7TN instead under $ 1TN in profit. Much this would be captured by our Big Tech.

There is nothing wrong with Harnessing New Technologies. But their deployment should not be structured in a way that trust dependence and public capacity. The online security law shows Digital sovereignty may have national rules on global platforms, to go up Porn sites. But current restless at the Alan Turing Institute Sets a deeper truth: The UK government is burned by US AI and has no clear plan of their own. Britain Risks are not a tech pioneer, but a well-controlled client state in the digital rich of someone else.

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