With the NHS still struggling, a prisons crisis still teetering and Britain’s borrowing costs soaring, there are few easy jobs going in Keir Starmer’s cabinet at present.
But even in such difficult times, the task of convincing Silicon Valley’s finest to help make Britain a leader in the artificial intelligence (AI) revolution – all while one leading tech boss uses the Labour government as a regular punching bag and others ostentatiously move closer to Donald Trump – is among the most challenging.
This is the mission that has fallen to Peter Kyle, the science and technology secretary, who has become an important figure in Starmer’s cabinet.
If balancing the concerns over online free speech, AI’s impact on the climate crisis and the threat it poses to wiping out humanity are not enough, the economic headwinds Britain is now experiencing makes the launch this week of the government’s AI action plan even more important. And Kyle is worried Britain could miss the boat.
Speaking to the Observer, he said: “We need a concerted effort as a country to ensure now, while we’re still in the foothills, that we are laying the foundations. I don’t want us to be a country that is always buying off the shelf from others. I want us to be at the cutting edge. We are the third-largest AI market in the world, but we’re not touching the sides of our potential.”
Britain is well positioned to be an AI “sweet spot”, he said, adding that getting it right could see the technology cut the costs of the state, as well as deliver higher tax revenues and precious economic growth.
But it involves some big calls – many of which could upset people within his own party.
The details of the AI plans are not yet clear beyond talk of a “sovereign AI team” charged with helping companies basing themselves in the UK, but it is already evident that it will involve Kyle and Starmer talking in language not normally associated with the Labour party.
Limiting regulation where possible and learning from the breakneck speed of development in Silicon Valley are the talking points. It will also involve a “course correction” on AI safety, on which Kyle believes Rishi Sunak placed an overbearing amount of attention, spooking the public in the process.
Kyle, once a passionate advocate for a second EU referendum, also spies a chance to adopt AI regulation that gives the UK the edge over Europe.
“I’m not going to criticise any other territory for the way that they’re approaching very difficult challenges. But there is undoubtedly a different approach in the way that I am legislating and regulating AI than the EU is,” he said. “Britain at its best encourages innovation, but always has safety baked in from the outset.”
One of the many political problems for Kyle is that this week’s pitch will come as big tech leaders are shifting to the right in their preparations for the arrival of Donald Trump.
Just last week, Meta founder Mark Zuckerberg announced he was ending factchecking at the tech company and reducing restrictions on topics including immigration and gender – a move interpreted as a signal to Trump that Meta was now a free speech ally.
Zuckerberg also said he wanted to work with Trump to push back against governments that were, in his view, being overzealous in regulating social media companies. While the UK and its new Online Safety Act were not named, Zuckerberg criticised Europe as a hub of censorship.
Meanwhile, X’s owner, Elon Musk, attacks Britain and the Labour government regularly and wildly.
Kyle’s strategy is one of ultra-pragmatism. He sympathises with Zuckerberg, searching for common ground. “What’s interesting is you see somebody who is grappling with the same issues that I am as a legislator,” he said.
“Yes, he wants to protect free speech, but he also said twice that they need to do a better job of taking illegal content offline.”
The approach also extends to Musk. “I’m available to talk to any innovator, any potential investor about AI in the UK,” he said.
“The rest of it, I’m just not interested in – with the exception of when it tips over into the kind of content which started to emerge around Jess [Phillips, the safeguarding minister recently attacked by Musk]. But I have a very high threshold for this.”
Kyle is resolute on one thing, however: Britain’s attempts to force social media companies to do more to combat illegal and harmful content are not going away – no matter how eager the UK is to attract AI investment.
“The threshold for these laws allows responsible free speech to a very, very high degree,” he said. “But I just make this basic point: access to British society and our economy is a privilege – it’s not a right.
“And none of our basic protections for children and vulnerable people are up for negotiation … Safety is not something that is pitted against economic investment.”
Then comes the thorny political issue of the huge and power-hungry datacentres needed to foster an AI industry in the UK, as well as the pylons needed to connect them all to the energy they require.
Kyle says bold action will be taken. “On Monday, I’m going to be launching the AI action plan with the prime minister that is going to be solidly spelling out how we are going to build the digital infrastructure that will underpin all of this,” he said.
“If we don’t have the computer power, if we don’t have the data processing power, if we don’t have the infrastructure that joins all of this together – we can’t build anything on top of it.”
And there is yet another issue brewing at home. In their pursuit of big tech dollars, figures in the creative and media worlds fear ministers are giving AI companies too much freedom to crawl over original content to train their models – putting their livelihoods and businesses at risk as a result.
A consultation on the issue is continuing and Kyle is in reassurance mode. “I’m not going to choose one against the other,” he said.
“The consultation I’ve published, I think, is a very good starting point. And there are several weeks left for people to air their views. I am 100% in listening mode over this – quite genuinely. But what I will not do is pit one against the other.”
