Years ago, I read author and historian Peter Ackroyd on London’s secret subterranean history. I became obsessed by the lost rivers, like the Effra and the Westbourne, still flowing in darkness beneath the city. Since I began researching this piece, I’ve felt similarly about artificial intelligence, thinking of it as a largely invisible system spreading beneath and across London, mushrooming through boroughs and institutions, twisting into everyday lives.
Across London an AI network is already taking shape. Beneath the streets, Thames Water has more than 75,000 acoustic sensors listening for leaks (no jokes about efficacy please). In Tooting, AI listens to consultations at St George’s A&E and writes the clinical notes, saving doctors an average 47 minutes per shift; across all 32 boroughs, machine learning joins up fragmented records to help London understand the journeys of people sleeping rough.
