Guardian columnist, senior economics commentator and host of the new Radical Thinking podcast Aditya Chakrabortty is answering your questions on the big ideas around economics, society and democracy, and his new podcast
Send your questions to conversations@theguardian.com or join the discussion on Friday from 8am
Perspectiverox asks: The government has an enormous amount riding on AI to deliver future economic growth. Do you think this strategy will work? And is the government’s heavy investment in this vision, and its apparent determination to pursue it, contributing to a failure to properly acknowledge or address serious public concerns about the environment and jobs? More fundamentally, what happens if the anticipated AI-driven growth doesn’t materialise? Is there a Plan B?
Aditya says: In their book When Nothing Works, the Foundational Economy collective of economists and analysts point out that after decades of successive governments in the UK talking up the ‘knowledge economy’, technology accounted for less than 5% of GDP. That wasn’t just a British failure – the story is same across much of Europe. This is before we get intot who benefits from AI.
I find the slavering of the UK’s politicians and press before America’s AI oligarchy vulgar and idiotic, especially when all the indications are that these trade deals work against the interest of Britons.
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