Chancellor Jeremy Hunt, the United Kingdom’s chief financial minister, visited Seattle on Friday as part of a West Coast tour to promote the expansion of the UK’s tech sector, and lay the groundwork for an upcoming global artificial intelligence safety summit organized by the British government.
He spoke with GeekWire following meetings in Seattle with tech and business leaders including Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy, Starbucks CEO Laxman Narasimhan, and Alphabet/Google CFO Ruth Porat.
Continue reading for an edited transcript of the interview.
GeekWire: How would you describe the substance of your meetings with Microsoft, Google, and Amazon today, and what was accomplished?
Chancellor Hunt: Well, they were very productive meetings, on a number of levels. The reason I’m here is because, in the last decade, the UK has become Europe’s Silicon Valley. We’ve become only the third economy in the world to have a trillion-dollar tech sector. And so there’s lots we want to talk about.
But the main areas of discussion are really around where we go next with AI, and whether it’s possible to get a global consensus as to the guardrails we put in place to really allow AI to take off, as we all want it to do.
There was a lot of common ground. The UK has got a reputation for having very nimble regulators who are good at nurturing innovation, and not stifling it. And it’s easier for us to change the regulatory environment than it is either in the EU or the US. It was really a discussion on all those levels as to what we need to do next.
Can you go into more detail about what, for example, Satya Nadella and Andy Jassy wanted to talk about?
At least half the time was spent talking about AI. We’ve got an AI safety summit coming up later this year (Nov. 1). We’re setting up an AI Safety Institute. We’re very hopeful that they will be members of that institute to help shape the regulatory structures that are going to work best for the development of global AI. And we want that to be the start of a global consensus as to the best way we harness this new technology to be a force for good.
Did you receive any indication from Microsoft, Amazon, or Google about their preferences for the involvement of China in the upcoming summit on AI?
There was broad agreement that, on something that is going to change humanity as dramatically as AI, you need to engage with China. That doesn’t mean you’re going to agree with them. It doesn’t mean that we’re going to necessarily have the same values and necessarily talk as openly as you would with fellow democracies.
“China has a huge tech sector and, love it or loathe it, is going to have a huge impact on the development of the Internet going forward.”
UK Chancellor Jeremy Hunt
But it is plainly sensible to see if there are areas of agreement, because China has a huge tech sector and, love it or loathe it, is going to have a huge impact on the development of the Internet going forward. My own view is, any engagement with China needs to be done with your eyes open. You need to understand that the system in China is not one whose values we share. And so that needs to be part of your thinking, but that doesn’t mean that you don’t talk to them.
When you consider the potential negative implications of AI for jobs, but also the potential positive impact on productivity and efficiency, do you see it as a net positive or a negative for the economy in the UK and globally?
I see it as off-the-scale positive. I really do. If you look at the lack of self-confidence and the social unrest, and sometimes the despair that you’ve seen in Western democracies in the last couple of decades, really since the financial crisis, a lot of it is because many have fallen into a low-growth trap. The average growth in the G7 at the moment is 1%. Whereas 15 years ago was 2% to 3%. And in the end, if the political classes are going to deliver what ordinary families want, we’ve got to find a way to get growth up, and MIT says that AI could triple our productivity.
One of the things that Satya Nadella said to me was that AI could bring back the joy into critical jobs, like being a police officer, or a teacher, or a doctor, by removing a lot of the drudgery and the difficult, annoying admin tasks that make those roles extremely frustrating. So I think from that point of view, I’m very optimistic.
But we have to harness this change with our eyes open. We welcomed social media as a fantastic way of making it easier for people to make connections, keep in touch with their friends and family. We now understand that the picture is more mixed than that. And there are mental health implications when these new tools are used in the wrong way.
So I think with AI, we need to be full of positivity and optimism about the potential but also be sensible about the risks and make sure they’re carefully managed.
It struck me that the UK Competition and Markets Authority’s announcement this morning giving preliminary approval to the Microsoft and Activision deal was great timing for you. Did that come up at all in your conversations with Activision Blizzard and Microsoft today?
Only to say that, we’ve always been very clear with Microsoft and Activision that the system we have in the UK — which is, by the way, what they want — is that regulators are wholly independent. And that decision by the CMA today had nothing to do with me, nor did the timing have anything to do with me, either. So that’s the system we have.
And that’s important, because what international investors love about the UK is that there’s a level playing field with domestic companies, and that regulators aren’t being [influenced] by politicians. They operate at arm’s length from us. But that doesn’t mean to say that politicians don’t have very important influence on what those rules are. And really that was why I had very useful discussions with Alphabet, Amazon, and Microsoft about how we create regulations that are nimble, and don’t stifle this new emerging technology, but foster its growth.
What would be your elevator pitch, to use a startup phrase, to tech companies about expanding in the UK?
I’d say this: we’ve just become the third trillion-dollar tech economy in the world because we have two very unique things:
- Outside the United States, we have the biggest financial services sector, so startups can get the funding they need to start up and scale up.
- And outside the United States, we have the most respected higher education sector with four of the world’s top 20 universities.
And what that means is that in the UK, you have an unrivaled amount of talent. So if you’re looking to hire people for your AI startup, your life sciences startup, your fintech startup, you can find them in the UK. We have a visa that means that anyone from the global top 50 universities can come to the UK without a job. And that’s deliberate because we’re trying to attract people from all over the world, the brightest and best, to the UK. …
Demis Hassabis is in Seattle today, where I am. When he sold DeepMind to Google, it was on the condition that he could keep DeepMind in London. And his argument was, I can get engineers of the same quality in the UK as I can get in the US, but they’re a lot cheaper, and it’s easier to find them.
We’ve got double the AI startups in the UK of any other European country. We’re currently attracting double the investment into technology of any other European countries. So it’s a great thing. And we’re very proud.
Are you using AI in your own work and life? And if so, how?
Well, it’s really interesting question, and well-done for putting me on the spot on that. The truth is we’re not using it nearly as much as I would like to be. I set up a project in which I’ve asked every UK government department to tell me, how much unnecessary admin is been done by public servants in your department, because this is the opportunity when it comes to productivity. So by Christmas, I’ll know how much unnecessary admin is been done by police officers in the UK, by teachers, by doctors, by nurses. We are then going to use that as the foundation for AI-driven projects that dramatically transform the delivery of public services. And that’s something we’re very excited about.
Any impressions of Seattle that you’d want to share? Or the tech companies here? What are your overall thoughts on what you’ve seen, heard and observed in your visit?
I’d just simply say this: Seattle is very similar to Britain. Everyone says it’s always raining, but when I’m coming in, it’s bright sunshine.
