Artificial Intelligence (AI) in London

As Sundar Pichai said "current state of the art AI technology is prone to some errors"

I fact I would suggest that along with risk assessments it is seriously dangerous as it stops users questioning results and using common sense and this is now becoming a tool used by criminals to defraud the public etc.

I have just completed the survey.  I feel that increasingly the Government and the NHS are implementing systems that we have to use' sometime a very short notice.  These systems like the replacement for the 8am GP contact is now online.  Not everyone is tech savvy and more consideration and respect needs to given to the general public before delivery. We also need to consider people who might have a disability who may not have access to the extra support that AI might required.

A solution would be more notice and perhaps some where to have generalised training.  

• What opportunities, if any, do you think AI brings?

  Too many people call something AI when it's just a sophisticated computer system. Systems that can alalyse a lot of data, make comparisons, see patterns and so forth give us the opportunity to find out a lot. They can try millions of things to see what might work, without having to actually make the things and so forth. These are all great for science, medicine etc.

• What challenges, if any, do you think AI poses? 

  The big challenge is that most folk don't understand that what they call AI is just a badly trained computer system digging through data and trying to create (that is, make up) an answer. Most large language models, which is the kind of AI most folk see, hallucinate and lie (they don't know it's not true) all the time, and humans think it's true and tell others. Sigh.

I feel like far too many people are using AI/LLMs as a replacement for thinking for themselves. AI is just a tool in the toolbox and can be used for loads of repetitive tasks. What people don't grasp though is that it's not actually smart. It's just very good at statistics and presenting information with confidence, even though it's often complete and utter fiction. 

People need a far greater understanding of what an LLM actually is and what it's doing. 

Also, the golden rule with AI is to trust, but verify. 

AI still can't replace experience. It also doesn't have the same ability to understand context and emotion as a human does. It's great at a lot of things that can help people work smarter and not harder, but you still need to be able to understand/explain what it's doing, and that's where experience comes into it. 

I personally use AI at work to help me with writing code. My general workflow is to use AI to write my test suites, while I write the actual code that does things. That way I know what it's doing and just don't blindly trust a statistical model. If I need advice on how to do something, I'll ask, but I will never implement anything I don't fully understand. 

I'll reiterate. AI is a tool that can complement, but not replace human thought.

I am retired but used to work with computers and IT. I am at a loss to see in what way AI and IT has made our lives better. AI will abolish jobs that require employees to think and make decisions. It will funnel money and power to a toxic elite. Social interactions will be conducted via absurd fake personalities. Datacenters will devour the land  around every city with their unprecedented energy demands and record carbon emissions. My advice to the Mayor and AI and jobs Taskforce is that jobs that involve traditional human skills should have priority.

I think AI helps us in focusing on strategic planning & decision making than on doing repetitive tasks especially in dealing in high volume of data in businesses & nowadays people wanted fastest results & increase on demand and with this AI comes into picture. 

For challenges, it would be the matter on how people use AI because some people use AI for spreading wrong information & biases. Another concern is the privacy of people and the Cyber security issues when using AI and people fear that AI remove jobs. 

With these challenges it is important that the public has the awareness and be responsible in using AI. The government's role must be providing people with positive information on how AI can improve the lives of people from different groups from students, elderly, the disabled and the businesses and developing a good practice in usage and dealing with risks and regulation are also essential.

Well! There would be opportunities for more labor and workforce security by watching camera, deploying security teams quicker across London.

I think the questionnaire is an unhelpful distraction on where the Mayor should be targeting attention.

• The public needs to understand how AI uses their data, how to spot algorithmic bias, and how to query public services effectively.
• Align AI deployment with how Londoners actually want to consume service (like conversational, multilingual access to housing or transport update), while maintaining human-in-the-loop overrides for critical decisions.
• Establish a transparent "London AI Register" detailing exactly where and how public data is used. Implement continuous automated red-teaming to catch demographic drift or bias before it impacts vulnerable communities.
• Ensure AI tools don't widen the digital divide. Interfaces must support assistive technologies, low-bandwidth environments, and diverse linguistic needs, ensuring equitable access for all Londoners.

We keep seeing how AI introduces bias when misused, the most important training program is internally within the public sector and their support organisations.

AI is a tool, just like the internet is. You can choose to use it to help yourself or others, or the complete opposite.

AI is happening, and will continue to grow- Those who embrace it will have an advantage over those who don’t.

As a society, we need to embrace it but also minimise the negative effects as much as possible without damaging progress. 

I am concerned that politicians do not fully understand or appreciate the changes that AI will have on employment, society and the potential wide scale use of AI. They talk about we must have it and must use it, but either don't want to recognise the job losses or just state oh well there will be different jobs. So what are these different jobs and why are we not seeing these new jobs and roles now. By the time our politicians realise the impact that AI will and is starting to have on people, families, employment, society and our lives it is going to be too late.

This discussion is too general and shows to me that this enquiry and research doesn't know nearly enough about what is really going on which is not all surprising to me considering how woeful the government has been so far on anything and everything to do with AI.

There needs to be a clear distinction made between 'Generative AI' (GenAi) and just 'AI'.

GenAI is the LLMs (Large Language Models) like ChatGPT, and image generators like MidJourney, Claud, Gemini.

To me the very barest minimum of using generative fill in Photoshop to extend the blurry background of an image for a poster or web banner is fine.

But using it to create entire concepts and imagery from scratch?

NO. Never.

AI was built on stolen works from humans all over the world.

It is the dodgiest of the dodgy. It you have an integrity or ethics, you will not get sucked in to this show of fakery.

Furthermore it guzzles our most precious resource - water! Gallons and gallons every single time you use it, and not 2nd hand old water, brand new fresh as snow water.

Wake up people, this is a fast track to hell.

Add to that, using and LLM for writing - goodbye your ability to think. Here comes dementia. 

It's already been showed to permanently damage the millions of students using it. There's no going back once you've gotten hooked.

Anyone see the animated movie 'Wall-E'? See it now.

AI is not a magic wand that will advance our world.

It is an axe that's already severed millions of jobs around the world - great, creative, important, HUMAN jobs.

If no one can work to make money, who is buying all those subscriptions and products huh? Not us. We will be homeless and starving.

Say NO to AI. 

I have tonnes of articles on proven outcomes for all of this, I've been studying it since it first started 3 years ago. So don't even try to discredit me. 

I can see from the comments page that the majority of people mistrust AI, quoting that results vary greatly between different sources. Perhaps at this point in the discussion it only demonstrates that Human final decisions are still important and hopefully, the threat to employment is currently minimal. Perhaps some time soon reliability and consistency will creep in. Until this comes about I will remain relaxed about the threat to my retirement.

I have been involved with the impact and evolution of machine learning since 1982. Unless and until the AI and Jobs taskforce uses "augmented intelligence" to analyse the direction of travel over that time, including its steadily growing impact on employment in London, it will not understand what has already happened, let alone what is now happening as teh pace of change accelerates. 

I am therefore focussed on supporting the work of OCN London in implementing processes to specify micro-modules on the practical use of augmented intelligence at all levels, from level 0  (access to employment) to 7 (use by engineers, lawyers, consultants to analyse very complex situations and make evidence-based judgements/recommendations). 

Until very recently I was parliamentary research assistant to Lord Lucas helping get corporate support for place-based skills partnerships. I am now development lead for Neighbourhood Watch in Lambeth.  

One of my immediate priorities is to enabling affordable (including uncharged to the recipient) access to OCN accredited training for talented NEETs who are otherwise at risk of being recruited by organised crime.  

 and can be contacted via [email protected]          

Without being heavily regulated, more so than any other industry in history, AI is going to massively increase the unemployment rate, heavily reduce the amount of tax governments of all levels can collect in this country, and drastically worsen the quality of live for the far majority of the population. This will only result in a very grumpy voting public who are not going to be very happy with any government that doesn’t tread very very carefully around this topic.

Accessible and affordable training in use of and application of AI required for daily life and work. 

AI can only be justified as an additional cost by further reducing employment. With the quick uptake of AI, how are we going to deal with the likely implications of high levels of unemployment, poverty, loss to the economy as a whole that will follow? The only benefit to the economy as a whole will be to a narrow selection of already wealthy people at the expense of everyone else. Or should AI be restricted to only a small selection of industries it could provide real benefit such as the Science and Medical industries?

A government licence should be sort for by any AI developer to ensure accurate and safe use for personal, educational and professional use. That way people may feel more inclined to use it without worrying if the information they are given is incorrect or misused, and hopefully any environmental impact can be significantly reduced.

Are there underlying assumptions that need questioning? Why data centres? Why not use our existing computers cooperatively with a few quantum computers? Open source cooperative AI?