With the world mired in confusion about how useful the artificial intelligence (AI) boom really is, an odd contribution has come from former British prime minister Tony Blair. Days after the Labour Party he once led returned to power, his Tony Blair Institute for Global Change hosted an AI-focused conference on the future of the UK, where he urged British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s new government to embrace AI as the “biggest technological revolution since the Industrial Revolution.” However, look closely: Blair’s platitudes sound like consultancy speak, and his claims that 40 percent of the UK public-sector work could be done by AI came from a dubious source: ChatGPT.
Blair has essentially gone full throttle into keeping the hype alive for a technology that businesses are grappling with on utility, cost and misinformation. That is unhelpful at a time when tech firms desperately need to get better at managing expectations about AI. It also does a disservice to the UK’s public sector. Why, for instance, would a university graduate want to be an administrator with the National Health Service (NHS) if the former prime minister has just said that 40 percent its tasks could be automated?
Blair’s predictions should be taken with an appropriate measure of doubt. Yes, machine-learning systems could help to optimize government systems, but doing so would take many years to bear fruit — perhaps a decade or so initially — especially when the UK has one of the longest-established civil services in the world.
The 40 percent figure that Blair has touted in interviews is also highly suspect. It comes from a research paper by his institute that looked at 20,000 tasks from a database of job occupations, known as O*NET. That is a US database with US jobs, and mapping them for an organization as unique as the UK’s NHS, which has a byzantine array of trusts and administrative layers, is already a stretch.
Then the researchers do something mindboggling. They ask ChatGPT which of the jobs in that database could be carried out with AI — since asking human experts would be “intractable” for the research. The vast majority of the paper’s estimates are carried out by ChatGPT, a close analysis of its methodology by Bloomberg Opinion’s data-science team showed. The researchers, for instance, ask the AI tool to categorize jobs, decide which type of tool could perform each one and estimate the time saved by automating them. The jobs data in the study use vague descriptions which would make it difficult for even human experts to gauge, and the possibility of errors in the conclusion is high, since ChatGPT has to take several steps to make its estimates. Overall, the dramatic 40 percent figure that Blair has been touting looks unreliable.
The same paper recommends the British government invest in AI technology and “upgrade its data systems,” without naming any providers. One has to wonder whether Blair in an informal meeting with Starmer — who has reportedly been turning to his predecessor for advice — would suggest the services of software giant Oracle Corp.
Oracle became an IT provider to the UK back when Blair was in power (from 1997 to 2007), and it still has contracts with the UK’s health service, The Times said.
The Labour leader went on to become close with Oracle’s billionaire founder Larry Ellison, and Ellison has since become a key donor to Blair’s institute, pledging US$375 million in donations so far, The Times said.
A spokesman for the Tony Blair Institute said: “Mr. Blair is not recommending Oracle to the UK Government and please do not suggest that.”
The spokesman did not directly answer questions about whether the Ellison Foundation was the institute’s biggest donor.
“The Larry Ellison Foundation donation is not the only large donation TBI [Tony Blair Institute] has,” the spokesman said. “We have nothing further to add.”
As someone who lived through the excitement of the Blair years, it is odd to see him gracing television screens once again, even if his public appearances make sense. Starmer has successfully rebuilt and rebranded Labour into an effective alternative to the Conservatives, in much the same way Blair did in 1997. However, Blair has gone on to style himself as a global statesman to rival former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, for instance advising African governments and hiring the former prime minister of Finland.
With Starmer no doubt looking for clever ways to kick-start the UK’s ailing healthcare system, Blair’s promises of automation might work for furthering his agenda, but his timing is reckless. Market skepticism is growing, as AI has yet to broadly demonstrate its potential. Generative AI holds promise, but tech companies such as OpenAI Inc, Google and Microsoft Corp have shot themselves in the foot by marketing it as an enterprise-ready, all-purpose magic bullet, and Blair’s warped and flawed AI study only reinforces that mirage.
It has been said that when technology firms find their enterprise contracts drying up, the next best place to go is the public sector. It would be a shame if the new British government fell under the spell of Blair and AI without due diligence. Starmer has made transparency central to his mandate, so any moves to embrace Blair’s guidance on AI should come with plenty of details, along with patience and restraint. Promises of a transformation are easy to conjure, but much harder to put into practice.
Parmy Olson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering technology. A former reporter for the Wall Street Journal and Forbes, she is author of We Are Anonymous.
With assistance from Carolyn Silverman.
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