Nick Watt speaks to Euan Blair, co-founder and chief executive of the apprenticeships company Multiverse, who says "if you can't change the way you work as a consequence of introducing AI, you will start to become obsolete". He also talks about his father Tony Blair's "evangelism" for artificial intelligence.
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NewsTranscript
00:00So, Euan Blair, you've said something I've not really heard many people say about AI,
00:04which is that the greatest risk is not AI overtaking humanity, it's us wasting a hugely
00:11beneficial revolution by not equipping our workforce to make it work.
00:16Tell us about that.
00:17The discourse in the media often focuses on what could go wrong.
00:20I think spending more time on what could go right is really important, and crucially,
00:24what can we do to help ensure it goes right?
00:27And the key is going to be training people.
00:28I mean, this is the most profound change that we've seen possibly since the Industrial Revolution,
00:34as AI really starts to hit the wider economy.
00:36And we're going to have to embark on a widespread reskilling and upskilling of the workforce
00:41if we're going to capitalise on these opportunities.
00:44And the reality is, with public budgets constrained, often company budgets constrained, if we want
00:50to be able to provide incredible public services, AI is the key.
00:53If you're talking about upskilling the workforce, are you not essentially training people to
00:59do AI, which then trains them out of their job?
01:03So we often say to people, AI is unlikely to take your job, but someone with AI skills
01:08just might.
01:09The reality is, AI needs humans in the loop, and particularly for safety and ethical reasons,
01:15but also for it to be really successful at the moment.
01:17It is actually often, with AI, not really a technology problem or challenge, but it's
01:22a cultural challenge and a human challenge.
01:24So if you can't change the way you work as a consequence of introducing AI, you will
01:29start to become obsolete.
01:31So the best way we get ahead of that is by training people and not make the mistakes,
01:34by the way, we made through de-industrialisation of not sufficiently equipping people for what
01:39comes next.
01:40Sir Keir Starmer has been saying two big things in relation to the public sector and AI.
01:45So firstly, he's been saying no person's substantive time should be spent on a task where digital
01:51or AI can do it better, quicker and to the same high quality and standard.
01:56And the next thing he's been saying is that the digitisation of government services can
02:01create up to £45 billion worth of savings and productivity benefits.
02:07Is that right?
02:08Lots of public sector jobs are going to go and billions of pounds in savings.
02:12So I think it's actually less about public sector jobs going and more about how you actually
02:16get the public sector much more productive, because he is absolutely right in terms of
02:20first the digitisation of government has been something that people have been working on
02:24in the background for a long period of time, but it probably hasn't been seen as the number
02:29one priority for the prime minister or government.
02:31We now have a prime minister who is saying this is our number one priority.
02:34We have to get this right.
02:36That's incredibly exciting because government sits on so much data and it could be doing
02:40so much more to help its citizens if it can actually just use that data effectively, if
02:45it can automate a lot of these basic tasks and processes that so much time gets wasted on.
02:49Now, what do you think of the government's overall strategic approach on AI, which seems
02:54to be following the less regulated US approach rather than the more highly regulated EU approach?
03:01Dare I say it, a Labour government looking for perhaps Brexit benefits?
03:07I think that you could even say that the government is sort of pursuing a healthy middle ground
03:12between what we're seeing in the US and what we're seeing in Europe.
03:15And look, the reality is for Britain, I actually think Britain is unlikely to win the battle
03:20on building the most sophisticated foundational models in the short term.
03:24America is a long way ahead.
03:26China is incredibly advanced in those areas.
03:29When it comes to things like data centres, our costs of energy and the sheer lack of
03:32space we have to go and build lots of them will be a challenge.
03:36The thing we can do when it comes to AI is say, why not make Britain and the British
03:40workforce the most AI native in the OECD?
03:43And you would say, look, there's a wave out there.
03:45Let's ride the wave.
03:46There's a revolution.
03:47Let's be part of it.
03:48But you have a business.
03:49Presumably this is good business for you.
03:51You can make money out of this.
03:52Well, look, we've had 20 years of lagging productivity and yet more software tools than
03:57ever and growing tech spends.
03:59They've not yet resulted in tangible gains for many people.
04:03And we can do that better by training the workforce.
04:06We do a huge amount, for example, on training over 55s.
04:09The single pocket of our apprentice population that is adapting fastest to technology right
04:14now is probably the over 55s.
04:16And they're also the ones that report seeing the most obvious benefits because they're
04:19incredibly excited to engage with this technology revolution.
04:22It's often a misconception that it is just a kind of Gen Z obsession using technology.
04:27People of every age want to engage.
04:29Now, I know of a very famous person who is an evangelist for AI.
04:34And this very famous person is the father of a very successful tech entrepreneur in
04:40this area.
04:41So my question to you and Blair is who is the tutor in this area?
04:45Are you Tony Blair's AI tutor or is Tony Blair your AI tutor?
04:49I couldn't possibly answer that or divulge any of the lengthy discussions we've had on
04:54this subject over the dinner table for about the last eight or nine years.
04:59Suffice it to say, his evangelism is real.
05:01He really does get this and see this as a defining issue of our time.
05:05You're a bit like me, one of these useless arts graduates.
05:07You wish you'd done, I think, was it an apprenticeship in software engineering and that you've got
05:12a bit above a bone to spick.
05:14Whoever was prime minister at the time who came up with that 50% target of sending school
05:18leavers to university.
05:19That was wrong, you think?
05:20I can't remember who that was.
05:21But it was...
05:22Look, by the way, the belief was the more people that went to university, the more people
05:26would sort of benefit from skills, the more people would learn, the more accessibility
05:31jobs would have.
05:32It didn't work out that way.
05:34So you have to sort of change and adapt.
05:36And the reality is we have had an education system that for too long has been fixated
05:40on classroom learning, rote learning, exams, and not actually practical learning, real
05:46world value.
05:47And when it comes to technology, by the way, again, the ability to use technology and deploy
05:51effectively is so fundamental.
05:54The best way to learn that is by experimenting with it on the job.
05:57Now, you were a teenager in Downing Street.
05:59You've now got the Starmer, a new generation of Labour children in Downing Street.
06:03I mean, do you have any advice for the Starmer children?
06:06I don't know, supporting Arsenal's not cool, that sort of thing.
06:09Any advice for them?
06:10As a big Liverpool fan, I fully agree with your Arsenal point.
06:13I think the main thing is, as much as it sounds sort of impossible or even absurd in those
06:18circumstances, just to make it as normal as possible.
06:22Focus on what's normal.
06:23When you go behind that door and into the kind of family flat, it genuinely felt like
06:28a normal household.
06:29It felt not dissimilar from the way our lives had always been.
06:31And the more you can do that, especially through pretty formative and often challenging teenage
06:37years, the better.
06:38Ewan Blair, thank you very much.