U.K. Chief Secretary to the Treasury John Glen me with academic and business leaders on Wednesday to discuss improvement areas for the public sector’s safe and secure use of artificial intelligence.
He pointed out that Britain placed in the top third in the United Nations’s Government AI Readiness Index 2022, but its public sector only ranked tenth in AI capabilities, despite the $22.2 billion private investment poured into the technology since 2016.
The chief secretary emphasized that safe AI use can be productivity’s main growth driver, citing how the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics saved 25,000 staff working hours with AI.
He also cited as an example the stroke units across medical facilities in England, 90 percent of which use AI tools for quicker treatment with triple chances of patient recovery.
“Through the use of safe AI, we can unchain our nurses, teachers, police officers and civil servants from time-consuming admin, freeing them up to help the taxpayer,” Glen said.
The AI roundtable session is tied with Chancellor Jeremy Hunt’s launch of an AI-focused public sector productivity task force in June, whose report is due in autumn.
