Like Harold Wilson and his ‘white heat of technology’, Rachel Reeves is presumably hoping that blathering on about AI and quantum computing in her Mais lecture today is going to make her sound modern and positive. Yes, of course artificial intelligence is the ‘defining technology of our era’ – we don’t need the Chancellor of the Exchequer to tell us that. I am sure that £2.5 billion of public money will be useful, but then there isn’t exactly a shortage of private capital being hosed on AI at the moment, so the need for public money isn’t clear; lower taxes and less onerous employment legislation might be more favourable. 

But if the government is so keen on using AI to transform the UK economy, here is just one little tricky........

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