Is AI Innovation Sustainable for the UK?
The UK Government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan seeks to boost innovation while maintaining ethical guardrails. Success hinges on execution – prioritizing real economic productivity over speculative gains. True prosperity will come from applied AI research, upskilling, and support for UK startups, not just corporate profit extraction. Initiatives like the £187 million investment in “TechFirst” national skills programme for digital and AI skills are promising, but the UK must ensure AI wealth flows to workers, not just VCs and large, global corporations.
Protecting Workers and Preventing Monopolies
To mitigate job displacement, the UK should:
- Expand AI upskilling programs for vulnerable workers i.e., women, creatives, early to mid-skill employees, differently-abled people etc.
- Offer tax incentives for companies providing AI training.
- Encourage employee equity in UK AI startups to distribute rewards fairly.
A merit-based AI ecosystem must prevail – preventing monopolies that stifle innovation and breed corruption.
Sovereign AI: Owning the Future
The UK must control its AI destiny – owning public data, models, and infrastructure to avoid dependence on large, global corporations. Regional AI hubs (Manchester, Edinburgh, etc.) can decentralize growth, reducing inequality and fostering nationwide benefits. Revenue from AI patents, data centres, or royalties could fund local upskilling, ensuring AI prosperity reaches all corners of the UK.
Sovereign AI: Learning from Norway’s Oil Fund Model
Norway’s $1.4 trillion sovereign wealth fund – built on oil revenues – shows how national assets can fund generational prosperity. The UK could replicate this with AI by:
- Creating a Sovereign AI Trust using revenues from AI patents, data centre taxes, or public data licensing.
- Investing returns into regional AI hubs, upskilling, and public AI infrastructure.
- Ensuring profits benefit citizens, not just corporations – Taiwan’s digital democracy offers another model, using open data and citizen participation in tech governance.
Public ownership prevents AI wealth from being captured by private interests.
AI for Public Good: Democratizing Access
Public trust depends on ethical, inclusive AI deployment. The UK should:
- Mandate open-source/public AI tools for transparency such as Finland’s AI Register.
- Establish AI ethics councils and data cooperatives.
- Explore universal AI dividends to share economic gains.
Public-sector AI trials (e.g., NHS diagnostics) must remain open-sourced and state-funded – not privatized – to ensure democratic oversight.
AI for Public Good: Denmark’s Preemptive Ban on Non-Consensual Deepfakes
Denmark’s proactive approach in dealing with deepfakes as a criminal offence covers:
- Enacting a forward-thinking criminal law that specifically outlaws the creation and sharing of non-consensual, malicious deepfakes.
- Providing a clear, legal pathway for victims and a strong deterrent for perpetrators.
- Acting as a strong deterrent by making it a criminal offence leading to a jail term for those convicted.
UK can also emulate this model as part of its regulatory framework, particularly to prevent deepfakes utilized for child sexual abuse images that have massively increased since the widespread use of AI as per the Internet Watch Foundation.
AI for Public Good: Learning from Taiwan’s Digital Democracy
Taiwan’s “Public Digital Innovation Space” (PDIS) shows how transparent AI governance builds trust. Their vTaiwan platform uses AI to:
- Crowdsource policy ideas from citizens.
- Visualize consensus through machine learning.
- Resolve tech policy debates (e.g., Uber regulation).
The UK could adopt similar participatory AI governance for NHS data use or regional AI hub planning.
Who Owns the Algorithms? The Case for Shared Custodianship
AI’s benefits must not be hoarded by private corporations. Instead, the UK should adopt:
- A sovereign AI trust (like Norway’s oil fund) to manage public AI assets.
- Open-core models for state-funded AI.
- An AI register (like Finland’s model) for tracking government AI use.
Governing AI: Accountability and Fair Redistribution
Market forces alone will not ensure ethical AI. The UK needs:
- A principled, innovation-friendly regulatory framework.
- Strong copyright and data privacy protections.
- A “UK AI Trust Mark” to certify compliant, ethical AI firms.
In a world increasingly sceptical of AI, the UK can become a global leader in responsible AI – a haven for trustworthy innovation.
The Choice Ahead: Will AI Unite or Divide?
By focusing on scientific advancement (drug discovery, green energy, robotics, climate AI etc.) and equitable growth, the UK can harness AI to restore economic balance – while ensuring no one is left behind. The final piece in the puzzle is to build trust in AI that will involve implementing the UK’s responsible AI regulation. This AI regulatory framework must be responsible, ethical, fair, just, inclusive, transparent, sustainable, democratic, agile, safe, secure, coherent, balanced, principles-based, innovation-friendly, incorporate copyright law and data privacy regulation, address bias in AI, protect the most vulnerable members of society from AI misuse and chart a middle-path between the US’s light touch approach and EU’s heavy handed one to position the UK as a global leader in responsible AI.
