by Peter Ladd, CARE
“The technology revolution led by developments in artificial intelligence, which will change everything. I mean everything. There is no point in debating whether this technological revolution is a good or bad thing. Just know it is a ‘thing’. In fact, it is ‘the thing’.”
Those are the words of Tony Blair from his essay this week, ‘The Labour Party is playing with fire over its future and the future of the country’. There was probably enough in the essay to merit an opinion-piece of its own, but having written various articles in recent weeks about Labour’s navel-gazing and the debates over its future, we’ve decided to leave well-alone (although for any politicos who are interested, both Andy Burnham, in ‘The Times’, and Wes Streeting, in ‘The Guardian’, have written responses of their own).
Whatever you may think of him, in a political age which is light on serious thinkers, Tony Blair is worth listening to, and I agreed with much of what he had to say.
His piece makes many salient points – particularly around the lack of a coherent vision, the rise in short-term thinking, the UK’s need to maintain global alliances, and Labour’s failure to create growth by pursuing anti-growth personalities – but one of the consistent themes is the rise of Artificial Intelligence. Although questions have been raised around the former PM’s links to American funding and whether he has a vested interest in the topic, his diagnosis is difficult to disagree with:
“It will displace jobs, though creating new ones, but no one yet knows the full consequence. Companies and countries will rise or fall on the back of it. It will revolutionise the private sector and should in time revolutionise public services and government. Yet people in most countries, including Britain, have no idea what is about to hit them.
This doesn’t obviate the need for immediate policies in familiar areas like immigration or taxation. But it will, in time, change even those.
Think of how Britain was in 1826 and how different it was in 1926. And then in 2026. This is the scale of change but in dramatically faster time.
Governments – any government – must find their place in this new world.”