Artificial Intelligence: Could this be a real boost for the North Devon Economy? - Tim Jones

There has been a lot of media coverage regarding this subject, some positive and some negative. Trying to navigate through this is difficult because events are moving so quickly.

What is clear is that the rise of this marks the most profound technology shift in our lifetimes. It is generally agreed that this has the potential to boost the UK economy by £400 billion by the end of the decade.

So, how does North Devon get involved in this agenda and will this be the moment when all our concerns about being remote and rural start to disappear? On the face of it, this is perfectly possible as virtually everywhere (subject to having a decent internet connection) will be able to access this extraordinary breakthrough. It is fascinating to see how fast the giant tech companies are moving into this space. Probably the most prominent is Microsoft’s Chat GPT. Google is lined up with its equivalent Chatbot Bard. There are new announcements virtually everyday about how these particular systems are being upgraded.

There can be no doubt that if this could be applied across our region, it would significantly change our productivity which sadly has been declining for many years and lags behind the UK average. The opportunity here is to help people back into work. To unlock new ways of working and to then make businesses more profitable. The economists are estimating that if we fully embrace the opportunity then an annual growth of 2.6% could be achieved. This alone would create around £200 billion in extra revenues for public services and give us a real chance to overcome the depressing number of barriers we have experienced over the last few years, including Covid, the negative impact of Brexit, inflation out of control and now rising interest rates.

Before looking at the positives, we also need to consider the downside. There is no doubt that this will impact upon current jobs. This will include sectors such as finance, insurance, education and repetitive manual work. We should not ignore concerns about who is in control. The godfather of this invention – Geoffrey Hinton – recently resigned from his job at Google warning that “bad actors” could or will use the new technology to harm others and this could potentially spell the end of humanity. Doomsday language but his warnings should not be ignored. As a start, we need to ensure that there are some basic levels of ethics and control built into the programming systems.

Another challenge is the need to ensure that we have the relevant skills to capitalise upon this fantastic new world. This will require upskilling across all ages of workers. Perhaps the launch of an AI national skills agenda should be an early initiative to ensure that employees and businesses are not left behind. This programme would help to link together the many opportunities that could arise from a coalition formed between government, technology firms, businesses and educational/ research institutes.

On the positive side, some of the well renowned research institutes estimate that Generative AI could save the average UK worker more than 100 hours a year – a huge improvement to overall productivity. Some of the big picture numbers are impressive, with estimates that more than 700,000 hours improvements a year in administrative working for UK health workers and teachers could be achieved, thereby offsetting some of the massive cost pressures facing the NHS and Education sector.

For Northern Devon, this could be a huge game changer. We have already benefitted from this with the adoption of video calls. This has helped many smaller local companies to gain access to big customers and suppliers, both nationally and internationally. The introduction of hybrid working has also been widely adopted. Here again, this is saving many of our local companies significant costs in rent and utility bills. There is evidence that some of our local businesses are beginning to gain an edge over much bigger rivals using these systems. The internet, smart phones and cloud computing have helped many firms to compete on equal terms including international markets.

Just one example of where we are seeing local benefits is with our fantastic marketing and branding companies. Generative AI is allowing them to create impressive content for a fraction of previous costs. Many of the countries biggest advertisers and established branding agencies are already running scared and seeing how they might be able to support small business growth. It is early days to accurately assess how many of our local businesses are diving in to this market. It is likely that the figures are currently quite low with only around 16% of our SMEs planning to adopt AI in the next three years. This of course raises the question about where are the remaining 84%?

It is however necessary to make an early commitment. This technology is moving faster than we could ever imagine. Now is the time to get on board. Wouldn’t it be a great result if Northern Devon was the Artificial Intelligence Leader in the South West? Some will agree with this, some will vigorously disagree, some are cautious and sceptical. It is however time to get off the fence.