In 2001, I learnt to code.
I was studying for my Master’s in Bioinformatics at Exeter.
That meant analysing massive datasets, and picking up coding languages.
And using that analysis to help us sequence genomes, create medicines tailored to your DNA, or predict the effects of new drugs.
This was 24 years ago, and tech looked a bit different back then.
I was rocking the Nokia 6310.
Apple introduced the iPod, promising “10,000 songs in your pocket”. (If you were anything like me, you were using it to listen to U2 or Faithless.)
Steven Spielberg released “A.I., Artificial Intelligence”, a futuristic fantasy about a humanoid robot trying to be a real boy.
And in a computer lab in Devon, for this stressed-out Master’s student, the reality of coding was a nightmare.
Any time something went wrong, you’d have to scour line upon line of code to try to find your mistake.
The misplaced curly bracket in the binary haystack.
One error could set your research back by days.
I don’t need to tell you how different a picture we have before us now:
- When my phone is my personal assistant, my concierge, my navigator.
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When 90% of the world’s data was created in the last two years.
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When AI is no longer the stuff of film directors’ dreams, but a practical tool changing our lives day to day – scanning for diseases in hospitals, or helping teachers plan lessons.
- And when governments are seizing the opportunity to change how we operate, too.
Last month, I went to see the Government Digital Service in Whitechapel.
They’re using AI and other emerging tech to make interacting with the state as easy as banking on the go, or online shopping.
A lot of that work is powered by AI.
When I watched the team at work, I saw how every time there was a tiny mistake in the code, it would flash up in colour on their screens.
Instant detection. Instant fix.
No more hours hunting for that curly bracket, or days of research lost.
Globally, change is inevitable.
But what’s not inevitable is the UK’s place in all of that.
Do we stand and watch change happen?
Or do we take a leading role?
I know that, for all of us in this room, there’s only one choice here.
The UK’s legacy is one of leadership:
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The 3rd biggest market for AI in the world.
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Driven by research from 4 of the world’s 10 best universities.
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And we’re home to some of the brightest luminaries in Artificial Intelligence – with two British Nobel prize winners for AI just last year.
That talent stands on the shoulders of Ada Lovelace, Charles Babbage and the man whose extraordinary contribution brings us all here today.
But we are not content to let this legacy remain just that – a legacy.
A history that we look back on fondly while, in the present day, other countries outpace us. And British people miss out on the benefits that AI can bring to their day to day lives.
To reap the rewards, academia, industry and the public sector must continue to work together in forums like this to solve our most pressing challenges.
And the government must give you the tools to make change possible.
That’s why, in January, the Prime Minister launched the AI Opportunities Action Plan.
It sets out how we’ll unlock the economic growth that AI promises – up to 47 billion pounds every year for the next decade.
We’ll give firms and researchers access to the power and information you need to get your ideas off the ground – with 20 times more computing power by 2030.
Early access to the AI Research Resource for academics and SMEs is now live, as we open up our supercomputers Dawn and Isambard.
We’ll unlock the public datasets you need to make new discoveries.
And we’ll also plug the skills gap – by building up skills at school, and nurturing research talent both homegrown and attracted from overseas.
As part of this, we’re expanding the brilliant Turing AI Fellowships, to give leading academics from multiple disciplines the tools they need to use AI in their work.
And we’ll keep supporting collaboration between academia, public sector and industry – working with the Alan Turing Institute and UKRI to drive progress at the cutting edge.
I started by looking back, to a time when texts had character limits, and coding mistakes caused me sleepless nights.
It feels right to end by looking forward.
If we get this right – if academia and public and private sectors all play the roles we do best – what could the future look like?
Here’s what we could say about this country:
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Like most new technologies before it, AI has created a raft of new, exciting jobs – adding more jobs than it replaces. Our children’s children are doing jobs we don’t have names for yet.
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No longer weighed down by admin, businesses are infinitely more productive. People can focus on the parts of their jobs that impact the bottom line, but also genuinely bring them joy.
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The strain on our health service has eased, as AI saves us months on each new drug discovery; and earlier diagnosis gives patients back years with their families.
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And with access to the world’s knowledge at ordinary people’s fingertips, life in the UK becomes more equal.
We know this future doesn’t just happen if we press ‘play’ and let time pass.
It needs a supply of power and talent. Careful handling on safety and ethics. And a deliberate effort to make AI work for all in this country, not just the lucky few.
Progress is only possible with partnership.
So thank you for having me today.
I hope the UK’s AI community continues to tell the government what you need, and to work with us to make our AI future as storied as our past.
This is a chapter we can only write together.
