Is AI all it’s cracked up to be?

So is Artificial intelligence (AI) to be a new engine of growth for the UK economy? That is Rishi Sunak’s hope. Ideally, he might have been using his trip to Washington to announce a trade deal between the UK and the US. Of course, that’s not going to happen: Joe Biden has made it clear that he doesn’t regard trade deals – with anyone – as a priority, not least because the crowning achievement of his administration so far, the Inflation Reduction Act, is a huge protectionist device dressed up as a fiscal and environmental measure. The Prime Minister then seems to have decided that securing something on AI is the next best thing. Sunak will not leave the US empty-handed: it has been announced this morning that Britain will host a summit on AI safety in the autumn – the first step, so Sunak hopes, to Britain becoming the home of a new organisation dedicating to regulating AI globally.