- London Mayor Sadiq Khan warns of job losses due to AI
- Entry-level jobs will be the first to fall, he says
- There are positive aspects, says Khan, but they require responsible deployment
London Mayor Sadiq Khan has warned that Artificial Intelligence could “usher in a new era of mass unemployment”.
London is particularly vulnerable, he argues, because the city relies heavily on white-collar workers in the financial and creative industries, especially given the high concentration of professional services such as accounting, law, consulting and marketing, all of which are at risk from the advancement of AI.
Junior and entry-level jobs will be the first to suffer, Khan said in a speech to business leaders, arguing that “we have a moral, social and economic duty to act.”
Moral, social and economic duty to act
With this comes the launch of a London taskforce on AI in the future of work, offering free AI training to London residents and seeking to assess the potential damage to the jobs landscape.
Khan outlines a clear choice for business leaders to be responsible in deploying technology: “Leverage the potential of AI and use it as a superpower for positive transformation and creation or surrender to it and sit back and watch it become a weapon of mass job destruction.”
He admitted that AI has huge potential benefits, toeing the party line amid the UK government’s plans to “unlock AI” in the public sector, explaining that “AI could allow us to transform our public services, boost productivity and tackle some of our most complex challenges.”
More than half of Londoners expect their jobs to change next year thanks to AI, with the Bank of England governor warning that AI is likely to replace jobs, as well as a “sharp market correction” when the AI bubble bursts, which could cause particular financial hardship if unemployment rises in the meantime.
It is worth noting that the Labor Government has outlined plans to bring AI to every corner of British industry with multi-million pound investments and has confirmed huge infrastructure projects to support the technology.
Through: the guardian
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