Sunak’s huge AI hopes unlikely to be realised

WHEN Prime Minister Rishi Sunak announced in June that he would host a big global summit on artificial intelligence this week (Nov 1-2), he claimed the United Kingdom should become the “geographical home” of AI safety. Laudable as that lofty goal is, it is, however, unlikely to be fully realised.

Sunak is well known to be fascinated by technology after the years he spent in California before he became a politician. Moreover, his father-in-law is the Indian founder of the technology company Infosys.

Sunak has regularly argued that the United Kingdom has fallen behind other economies, especially the United States, because of an innovation gap. He therefore wants to “make sure the United Kingdom is the country where the next great scientific discoveries are made, and where the brightest minds and the most ambitious entrepreneurs will turn those ideas into companies, products, and services that can change the world”.