King's welcomes senior UK and global leaders at first AI Summit

Across two days, the King's AI Summit: Workforce Futures, hosted by the King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence, has brought leaders together to discuss urgent questions about the impact of AI and the future of work. These include the impact of automation on jobs, who gains from AI and who is left behind, how workers develop new skills, the importance of responsibility, accountability and good governance and what does human-AI interaction mean for human-human relations.

Opening the Summit, Professor Sir Bashir M. Al-Hashimi CBE FREng FRS, Vice President (Research & Innovation) at King's College London and Co-Director of the King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence said: "I am immensely proud to have been joined by so many esteemed speakers at our first AI Summit at King's. Our Summit discusses the urgent questions that policymakers, industry leaders, companies and workers are asking and looks to answer these with research and evidence.

"For example, how do we achieve equitable outcomes and what does good governance look like in practice? No single sector, discipline or institution can tackle this alone and the value of gathering of like this lies in effective and open collaboration. Bringing people together will be crucial in building a common understanding on how we prepare for shaping the workforce of the future."

Large employers should not simply be asking about productivity, they should be looking at how to develop the next generation of talent. There is a huge opportunity here. London has enormous strengths, talent and universities and there is a need to build an economy where far more people feel capable of participating.

Other keynotes yesterday were from Phil Smith CBE FREng from Skills England and the Digital Skills Council, Sheila Flavell CBE, COO of FDM Group and President of techUK, and Howard Dawber OBE, Deputy Mayor of London for Business and Growth.

Today, Dr Fabien Curto Millet, Chief Economist at Google, Lord David Willetts from the Resolution Foundation and Dame Chi Onwurah MP will address the Summit.

The programme also featured a number of panels throughout including discussions on the UK gaming industry, what the workforce of 2030 will look like and what Britain really thinks about AI and work, with findings from the first wave of King's major new tracker on public perceptions on AI and the future of work. The tracker finds that seven in 10 of the UK public are worried about the economic impacts of AI and six in 10 think it will eliminate more jobs than it creates. Despite this, more say they will (43%), rather than won't (26%) use it in the future.

The King's Institute for Artificial Intelligence was established precisely to bring together the breadth of expertise across this university, and beyond it, to address difficult questions and accelerate AI that is safe, ethical, and genuinely beneficial.