Do you agree with our readers? Have your say on these MetroTalk topics and more in the comments. Mrs Hurdman (MetroTalk, Thu) says Sir Keir Starmer’s determination to make Britain an AI ‘superpower’ will see people lose their jobs to the technology.
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It’s important to realise that we can’t deny progress. In 1930, the economist John Maynard Keynes said that, by 2030, we’d all be working 15 hours a week. AI could allow this to happen – but it does mean we have to support those who can no longer work.
When the Beveridge Report led to the welfare state, a competing idea at the time was Lady Rhys-Williams’s basic income for all. We may need to start reconsidering a Universal Basic Income, paid for by a robot tax or some sort of land tax, as once described by Henry George.
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If you learn some economic history (through podcasts such as mine), you’ll find there are many solutions to the world’s problems and a great deal of optimism for a ‘better life’ as well. Gavin, (Co-Host Economics In Ten), Knebworth. ‘It’s not AI you have to worry about’.
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Other nations are taking AI much more seriously than us. Sir Keir Starmer’s plan is just that, a plan. No one can truly predict or properly prepare us for the future but we need to do something. The reality is that AI won’t take your jobs, but those who use it will. T Burnett, Yorkshire.
