The mayor’s speech says AI could transform public services and tackle complex challenges like cancer care and the climate crisis, but if used recklessly, it could “usher in a new era of mass unemployment, accelerated inequality and an unprecedented concentration of wealth and power”.
“We mustn’t drift, absentmindedly, into a future we didn’t ask for and don’t want.
“We need to wake up and make a choice: seize the potential of AI and use it as a superpower for positive transformation and creation, or surrender to it and sit back and watch as it becomes a weapon of mass destruction of jobs.”
Polling carried out by City Hall in November found 56% of London workers expect AI to affect their job within the next year.
Sir Sadiq believes that without intervention, roles may disappear faster than new ones are created, with entry-level jobs likely to be the first to go, “robbing our young people of that vital first step on the career ladder”.
He is expected to announce a taskforce of experts from government, the skills sector and the AI industry to review the situation and assess how to support Londoners in the future.
Findings from the review are due in the summer, and Sir Sadiq will also commission free AI training for all Londoners.
