Artificial Intelligence (AI) in London

My thoughts on AI are simple. It can be useful for some things for something like a drone used to search for wildfires or monitoring water levels etc, but as always we are seeing over reach as soon as it has been implemented, everything from Palantir to facial recognition cameras. This is causing a lot of distrust of large companies, policing and even more distrust of government, that for reasons we all know and dislike, want more of our information for controlling purposes. 

I say no to all use of AI purely on the basis of complete government and big tech over reach. 

I have this sent to me by email: Your feedback will help the Mayor’s AI Taskforce report back to the Mayor on how to support Londoners with AI. 

I’ll keep you updated when they share their recommendations, so please keep an eye out for me in your inbox.  

To find out more about the Mayor’s plans to support Londoners with AI, read our Talk London page on AI in London.

I don't support this but it looks like they're going to go ahead with it any way regardless of how many people who said they don't want it in London

I do not support this and I will not be forced to use it

I'm concerned about the environmental impact of uncontrolled use of artificial intelligence. A search using an AI supported search engine increases the carbon footprint tenfold of a simple search. Whilst an AI search is a useful for some things they serve no purpose for a simple search. I work in the NHS and it is sad to see many of my senior managers and colleagues believing the hype about AI- when the reality is it has not helped me in the slightest. What would help me is a tool which helps me access results of investigations and clinical letters from other trusts a computer that works and an email system that does not keep crashing. Getting the basics in place would help reduce my use of the computer and reduce carbon footprint. AI just increases complexity. It seems to me that it is a distraction for technophiles and a money making opportunity for unscrupulous IT firms. I am not a technophobe and I believe AI does have a place for example in helping patients access the correct care and helping the NHS with its confused and fragmentary referral systems and care pathways. but to see it as a panacea for everything is absurd. if we don't keep it in its place the dangers are huge. 

What could we do besides promoting jobs that are based on actual human intelligence,  effort, humanity, experience, social interaction, creativity and skill? I am reluctantly accepting that the AI revolution is happening whether we like it or not. I would suggest that AI safety, defence, and cybersecurity jobs will be needed and could be profitable. Medical research and climate science are benefiting from use of AI and there is a gap to fill due to USA politics.

NYG what is the point in that if i'm not going to understand it any exams I will fail that's the story of my life but I have made my choice I don't want AI in my life at all it's not for me and what does this word I have never seen this or heard of  protagonists

Well done for blocking Palantir from the Met.

Please continue to prevent any use of the company within British infrastructure. Leadership within these companies remains a critical factor.

 If the ethics and ideology of leaders within these companies don't align with the nation's and people's best interests then they should have nothing to do with our public bodies. When personal motivation of the likes of Karp is so clear it stands to reason the underlying goals of the company are no different.

Ethics are critical.

If the people involved are morally corrupt and devoid of human empathy then expect a cruel reality behind any seemingly good deal.

I always think it's best to develop things in house.

This country looks too often to outsourcing.

Invest in building our own capabilities?

AI is a sophisticated computer program. It is a tool and, like most programs and tools, can be used in many ways. Good and bad.

It can also be programmed. Ask Chinese AI who owns Taiwan and you'll get a different answer than when using UK AI. You can trust AI as much as you can trust it's owner. Palantir? Huawei? Musk?

If I write a job application using AI and I'm selected by a process using AI. Is it me being employed, and by who?

Who takes responsibility for mistakes made by AI?

Who pays for the environmental damage from data centres?

We must be very careful and selective about the use of AI. It is not a panacea.

Does AI bring opportunity? It sure does. It brings opportunity for the billionaire owners of AI, it raises the boats for employers - including Meta overnight - seeking deep staff cuts, etc. The only people claiming AI will generate work to compensate for the damage it does are people selling AI, or those adjacent to them. That claim has yet to be tested, and I don't anticipate we will succeed in that test - plus the jobs it does create will be globalised, which means for every 1,000 jobs lost in London even if 1,000 jobs are created they won't necessarily be in the UK. What challenges does this create, other than years more of misery, poverty, and wasted, fractured lives? Well, I guess there's an opportunity for AI surveillance "for our protection".

I use AI myself. I know the people involved, I don't trust them, or this wave, and London should not become a test bed for the impact of AI on employment, because it will immiserate Londoners even more than we have been already.

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.