AI will transform the ‘human job’ and enhance skills, says science minister
Advances in AI and robotics will transform human jobs, starting with roles in warehouses and factories, the UK science minister has said, as the government announced plans to reduce red tape for robot and defence tech companies,Patrick Vallance said technological progress was creating a “whole new area” for robots to work in,“What’s really changing now is the combination of AI and robotics,It is opening up a whole new area, particularly in the sorts of things like humanoid robotics,And that will increase productivity, it will change the human job,” he told the Guardian.
Lord Vallance spoke as a government unit helping to deploy new technologies in Britain announced robots and defence as new sectors receiving its support.He said factories and warehouses, already at the forefront of robot deployment, will undergo further change as a result of the new generation of humanoid robots.“Activities that require movement around warehouses and factories, or those sorts of things that can be made robotic, will be made robotic.I think they will be made robotic in many cases and therefore, will change the nature of those jobs.That’s going to be the first wave,” he said.
Meanwhile, the London mayor, Sadiq Khan, has warned that AI could “usher in a new era of mass unemployment”.Speaking in his annual Mansion House speech on Thursday, Khan said artificial intelligence could destroy a significant amount of jobs in London unless ministers act to help replace jobs taken over by the technology.Asked to comment on Khan’s speech, Vallance said robots would take away “repetitive” tasks.“You take away some of the things which are less interesting, repetitive things that can be done in another way,” he said.Vallance, formerly the government’s chief scientific adviser, added that the example of robotics assisting in surgery showed how the technology can enhance jobs.
“Robotics is not displacing surgeons, it’s radically improving how those surgeons work and allowing things to be done with more precision,” he said.The government announced on Friday that the Regulatory Innovation Office (RIO) is expanding its remit to defence tech and robotics, with the aim of slashing red tape for companies operating in those spaces.The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is also releasing £52m for new hubs to drive robotics adoption in British businesses.These hubs will offer companies advice on using robots and live demonstrations.“The RIO will aim to streamline overlapping requirements to bring products to market safely, but more quickly, to improve lives and grow our economy,” it said.
The department added that autonomous drones could benefit from the wider RIO remit,Such technology could require separate approvals for aviation, data protection, and sector-specific safety rules, in an expensive process that could take months,Vallance was speaking during a visit to Humanoid, a UK-based robotics company that has already deployed its prototypes in a factory operated by German industrial group Siemens,Adam Kelsall, Humanoid’s head of product management, said the company welcomed “anything that gets us into the real world and testing [robots] sooner”,
Barbs and a betrayal as Jenrick joins Reform after Badenoch gives him boot
Robert Jenrick made a dramatic defection to Nigel Farage’s Reform UK on Thursday, declaring the Conservatives “rotten” and a “failed” party, after being sacked by Kemi Badenoch for plotting against her.In a high-stakes day for the future of the British right, Jenrick became the most senior Tory to switch allegiance to Reform, launching into a fiery and personal denunciation of his former colleagues in the shadow cabinet.The defection of Jenrick deepens the schism on the right of politics as Badenoch struggles to keep the Conservatives together in the face of a string of high-profile moves to Reform.The former shadow justice secretary, who stood for the Tory leadership against Badenoch, said the Conservative party in Westminster “isn’t sorry, it doesn’t get it, it hasn’t changed, it won’t change, it can’t change”.“In opposition, it is easy to paper over these cracks, but the divisions and delusions are still there,” he said at a hastily reorganised press conference with Farage in Westminster on Thursday
‘Not so clever after all’: how Robert Jenrick was ejected before he defected
Four days before Robert Jenrick was kicked out of the Tories for planning to defect to Reform UK, he spoke “at length” with Kemi Badenoch on the phone about party strategy. The week before he had sat through a shadow cabinet awayday taking copious notes.While the Tory leader had been aware for some time of speculation over her shadow justice secretary’s future, she had no hard proof of his plans, so it was business as usual. That all changed just 24 hours after their one-to-one conversation.On Monday, senior figures in Badenoch’s office were sent screenshots of what one said was “irrefutably” Jenrick’s entire resignation speech from what sources claimed was a mole in his office, along with the accompanying media plan
Treachery and stupidity to the fore as Robert Jenrick defects to Reform | John Crace
One is too many and 1,000 never enough. Addiction is a tricky business. What starts as fun inevitably, insidiously, tears away the soul. And there are signs that Nigel Farage’s press conference habit is getting out of control. He started off at one a week
Robert Jenrick: from remainer to rightwinger with ruthless reputation
For a long time, Robert Jenrick’s transformation from a David Cameron-supporting remainer to an anti-immigration rightwinger did not convince many of his political peers – least of all Nigel Farage.Only last year, the Reform UK leader was describing him as a “fraud” and saying he was sceptical that Jenrick was genuine, dubbing him “Robert the Generic, Robert the Remainer and Robert the I Don’t Stand Particularly for Anything at all”.“There are people in politics who are there through conviction and there are people in politics who are there because they want to reach rank, position and all that comes with that,” he said at the time.“I’m really still not sure about Jenrick, to be honest with you, I’m really not sure.”Now, the verdicts of some of Jenrick’s Tory colleagues on his political behaviour are similarly damning and centre on his unbridled ambitions
Tory defectors: who has already joined Reform UK and who may follow?
With Robert Jenrick’s defection, the number of current or former parliamentarians to have joined Reform from the Conservatives has risen to 18. Some of the best known are likely to be prominent voices for Nigel Farage’s party in the run-up to the next election.There are others within the Conservative party thought to have considered their position in recent months. But Farage has claimed that the value of such additions to his ranks is dropping – and said he would accept no further defectors from the Tories after the May elections, arguing that by then his party’s strength would be so clear that they would have little to add.Here are some of the most prominent figures on both sides of that divide
‘The mask has slipped’: What have Jenrick and Farage said about each other in the past?
Like other Conservative recruits to Reform UK, Robert Jenrick’s defection has come with no shortage of lacerating past comments about Nigel Farage and his other new colleagues.When Nadhim Zahawi defected to Reform on Monday, Conservative headquarters were quick to unload the former chancellor’s previous comments about Farage on to social media.In the case of Jenrick, below is just some of the ammunition they have been drawing on once again.Today I took forward a bill to stop the two-tier sentencing rules that come into force in just 18 days. While Nigel Farage swanned off to Cheltenham to forget his troubles
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