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UK AI minister urges contingency plan for worst-case job losses
The minister said a think tank is working on an AI “pandemic preparedness” report, and warned labor market effects could be larger than the industrial revolution despite limited current adoption.
The UK government should plan for the possibility of “unprecedented” AI-driven job losses, according to AI Minister Kanishka Narayan, who said there is no evidence yet of an overall reduction in jobs from AI.
Narayan said one priority is having a contingency plan for worst case scenarios, adding that the level of AI adoption by industry has not been that high so far and may not ultimately lead to massive job losses.
At a fringe meeting during the Labour Party conference, he said the think tank IPPR is preparing an AI “pandemic preparedness” report on labor market disruption, and he argued that AI could still have a bigger impact on the labor market than the industrial revolution.
He also acknowledged that “stark scenarios” produced by the IPPR in 2024 were “to some extent” wrong, but he said AI has evolved rapidly since then, moving from “boring” tasks to more high-level reasoning and creative tasks.