Policy Brief: Refreshing the UK’s strategic approach to AI
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Refreshing the UK’s strategic approach to AI
AI is at risk of following a well-worn path that results in technological innovations that fail to address real-world challenges. We have almost a decade of evidence showing what people want from AI. Public dialogues consistently call for AI technologies that tackle the challenges that affect our shared health, wellbeing, and prosperity, that help strengthen our communities and our personal interactions, and that support democratic governance. The last ten years have brought impressive technical advances in AI and intense policy activity. However, neither technology or policy development have been well connected to social need.
The next phase of AI policy will need to consider how to centre public interests in AI development, how to strengthen governance frameworks that steward AI development towards shared public benefit, how to build a public infrastructure for innovation, and how to grow the UK’s world-leading domestic AI base in a way that delivers real benefits for citizens.
This report introduces the broad range of levers that government could consider as part of its policy agenda for AI. It highlights a need to focus on the practical barriers to delivering AI-enabled solutions to real-world challenges as part of policy design and implementation. Our call in this document is for innovative approaches to open policy development that embed stakeholder engagement across the policy lifecycle. By supporting those on the frontlines of innovating with AI to deliver public benefit, the UK can generate a productivity flywheel that scales AI innovation while closing the gap between technological progress and real-world benefit.
This report is brought to you by ai@cam, The Bennett Institute for Public Policy, Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy.
