IET responds to Keir Starmer’s AI plan to boost growth

Dr Graham Herries, Chair of the Institution of Engineering and Technology’s (IET) Digital Futures Policy Centre.

“This is an ambitious plan, but AI in all its various forms, is not infallible and must be applied diligently, and appropriately. AI solutions must be aligned, encompassed, and influenced by robust software engineering, software architecture, management, governance, technology operations, and service delivery / service management – this ensures a high-quality product from start to finish. If the government leads the way in its use of AI, it will encourage other sectors to adopt it successfully.

“It's critical that the appropriate legal and regulatory structures are in place to allow AI’s safe development and use but that do not stifle innovation. The UK’s most valuable position on the international AI spectrum would be to offer increased safety standards for assessing a new AI product. This would help regulators do their job and drive innovation.

“We also need to see greater transparency around the training and operation of AI systems. This is especially relevant for publicly accessible large language models, which trains its models in part on user data. The government should establish firm rules on which data can and cannot be used to train AI systems – and ensure this is unbiased as part of the new data centres outlined in the manifesto pledges. AI spans so many different sectors and industries, it’s also imperative that regulation is harmonised.

“The data clouds are not in the sky – considerations must be made to mitigate the high energy requirements and usage of AI data centres and network infrastructure. Sustainable innovation is not a “nice to have” scenario – this must happen, and the UK has the opportunity to be the trailblazer in this.

“Current data centres are unsustainable without greener infrastructure, so we need to see government support for green technologies by building sustainability into appropriate regulation of new and expanding technologies.  This could include a bronze, silver, gold standard for the approval of new data centres – which support AI servers – in the UK, based on a sustainability rating.  

“This is not an easy task, but we need sustainable innovation to be the future. 

“All of this work will need to be underpinned by a resilient skills pipeline – one which the UK is currently lacking in emerging tech. Employers are telling us that there is a lack of skills in industry to take advantage of AI. While progress has been made with some government initiatives such as funded AI PhDs and skills bootcamps, these do not go far enough to addressing the skills gaps that are starting to appear at the chartered / technician levels.”

ENDS

Notes to Editors

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Media enquiries to:

Rebecca Gillick
External Communications Manager
Email: rgillick@theiet.org