Nice, shiny speech about AI, prime minister… shame about the dodgy wifi

There are dreams… and then there’s reality. And when trying to persuade people you are really not a ploddy old analogue prime minister, but actually a Jedi warrior of cutting-edge digital know-how, it’s probably best to pick a venue where the wifi works.

Like so often with high-tech, the wifi at UCL’s Institute of Making didn’t quite deliver what was hoped. So it was a rather bored audience of academics and journos that waited an hour to hear Keir Starmer talk about how artificial intelligence can save Britain’s economy.

He was late starting, too – which suggests a digital watch might make a good starting place for the new revolution.

No 10 handed out some blurb that boasted – and I promise this is not a made-up quote – “today’s plan mainlines AI into the veins of this enterprising nation”. This, presumably, is how PMs will talk in the future when ChatGPT writes press releases at a fraction of the cost of humans.

Starmer finally stood up to a backdrop of white robotic tools resembling a vast dental surgery. He started his speech with a heart-warming story of how AI had helped a stroke victim, Deb Kelly, be treated in just three minutes. He had been chatting with Deb that very morning (not over wifi, one assumes).

Now he was going to “turbocharge growth” by making the UK an “AI superpower”. The groaning cliches reminded me of the Thick of It episode in which the minister declared: “I call app Britain!”, with the slogan: “They might have the silicon chip – but we have the silicon chap… and, of course, chapesses.”

Britain was like "dad’s old Ford Cortina", and he was going to turn it into an F1 supercar! In case you were wondering, this line is genuine Starmer and not the TV parody.

These are not easy times for the government. Shortly before Starmer arrived to present his reverie, another gust of cold reality blew in from the gilt markets, showing the cost of borrowing rising ever higher.

AI, he promised, would soon be advanced enough to identify potholes in the roads. Not fix them, mind. And, honestly, you really don’t need a new national supercomputer with its own nuclear generator to spot craters in the tarmac where I live: the comet trails of broken bicycle spokes do the job.

AI would help teachers by taking over the boring bits of their job, enthused Starmer – which raised the interesting spectacle of ChatGPT marking the very essays that schoolkids now get it to write for them. Imagine the grade inflation!

One wonders if AI could also run the trains more safely and reliably than human drivers, but Starmer didn’t mention it – and I suspect that’s one conversation that he won’t be having with Mick Whelan. Britain might well become “one of the AI superpowers”, but Aslef and the RMT will still have more muscle.

The PM vowed to get rid of the “blockers” who were holding back the AI sector. It seemed a striking change from the rhetoric of Rishi Sunak, whose focus a year ago was all about keeping AI safe. One could not help wondering if the safety-first mantra is going the way of bat protection tunnels.

Last year, I watched a brilliant and sobering speech at Oxford by Geoffrey Hinton, the Nobel laureate nicknamed the Godfather of AI, who resigned from Google in order to "freely speak out about the risks of AI”. He pointed out that the day is coming when humans will not really understand what AI is thinking because it will be cleverer than us.

After the PM’s speech, the microphone was grabbed by a long-haired professor who gave a monologue about “the industrial revolution of our lifetime”, who turned out to be ITV’s Robert Peston building up to a question about the dire state of the public finances. Starmer assured him that “all of that ladders up to growth”, another phrase that smacked of AI.

The elephant missing from the room was Rachel Reeves, who was flying home from China amid grim rumours swirling about her own future prospects.

Twice, Starmer was asked if he would keep Reeves as chancellor to the next election. Twice, he offered “full confidence” to his key ally but ducked the actual question. Why could he not simply say that she was staying at the Treasury?

Significantly, Starmer said Labour “will stick to the fiscal rules”, which matters because these rules limiting future spending are what Labour backbenchers are actually most vexed about. On its own, it ruled out any U-turn. Taken together with his previous replies, it left a sense that No 10 might like a chancellor with a more flexible interpretation of the rulebook. I’m sure he can come up with a phrase to describe that. Or maybe ChatGPT could help?