There was a time when Britain aspired to be a leader in technology. These days, it seems content to be a willing supplicant – handing over its data, infrastructure and public services to US tech giants in exchange for the promise of a few percentage points of efficiency gains. Worryingly, the artificial intelligence strategy of Sir Keir Starmer’s government appears long on rhetoric, short on sovereignty and built on techno-utopian assumptions. Last week Peter Kyle, the technology secretary, was promoting the use of AI-generated discharge letters in the NHS. The tech, he said, will process complex conversations between doctors and patients, slashing paperwork and streamlining services. Ministers say that by applying AI across the public sector, the government can save £45bn.
But step back and a more familiar pattern emerges. As Cecilia Rikap, a researcher at University College London, told the Politics Theory Other podcast, Britain risks becoming a satellite of the US tech industry – a nation whose public infrastructure serves primarily as a testing ground and data source for American AI models hosted on US-owned cloud computing networks. She warned that the UK should not become a site of “extractivism”, in which value – whether in the form of knowledge, labour or electricity – is supplied by Britain but monetised in the US.
