From nowhere Artificial Intelligence (AI) has taken over the headlines, and seems to be impacting many aspects of our lives, so this month inReading is taking a deep dive into the implications this exciting technology is likely to have in Reading and for those of us who live and work in the town.

With a significant tech and service economy and home to major bases for many multinationals such as Oracle, Microsoft and Pepsi, the question is not if AI will transform Reading, but how profoundly.

So, what is AI ? Well, we asked Gemini, Google’s AI assistant to explain:

“Artificial Intelligence (AI) essentially teaches computers to mimic human intelligence, enabling them to learn, reason, and solve problems. A key aspect of AI's learning process involves using data to refine its understanding, much like how we update our beliefs with new information. This allows AI to automate tasks, analyze vast datasets, and personalize experiences, leading to advancements in fields like medicine and technology. However, AI also presents challenges. Because AI learns from data, it can inherit and amplify existing biases, potentially leading to unfair outcomes. Additionally, AI often lacks common sense and its decision-making processes can be difficult to understand, raising ethical concerns about its responsible use.”

The one thing to emphasise is that current AI models are based on making the best guess possible, so sometimes get things badly wrong, get confused, do not use common sense and make things up.

AI Don't Need No Educashun

In education the impact of AI has been immediately and is profound. After all, if you could get someone to write your homework and coursework at schools, college or university, surely you would do ? So it’s hardly surprising that a study out this week from the Higher Education Policy Institute indicates that 92% of students are using one of the AI assistants such as ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot, etc.. in their coursework to some extent or other. However, teachers are equally being given AI tools to both spot ‘AI cheats’ and to mark papers. The situation is complex and has far reaching consequences for every teacher, lecturer and student.

The University of Reading established a GenAI Working Group in August 2023 to consider its approach to the use of GenAI in teaching and learning. In a study last year, research by the university saw AI-generated answers submitted to examiners on behalf of 33 fake students and results showed it was "very difficult" to detect.

On the flip side, there is little doubt that more and more universities will seek to offer courses centered around AI - Reading University is already offering an MSc in Climate Change and Artificial Intelligence (AI) combining the expertise in the Department of Meteorology, Department of Computer Science, the Walker Institute, and Henley Business School. The impact on education is already considerable and, at a time when budgets are under severe pressure and many other negative factors are hitting the sector, education is going to need not only to embrace AI but to quickly get to grips with its profound implications. As a parent in Reading, would you allow your children to use AI to do their homework ?

Big Companies Are Already Adopting AI

And there are other places where you will have already encountered AI. Bots are taking the place of call centres and having an impact on the many support centres based or operated by companies in our area. Newbury based Vodafone have sought to save costs by replacing all their help functions with the TOBi bot, but a recent test of this AI technology by inReading provedd that it is far from fit for purpose. Expect more frustration, incorrect and nonsensical answers when you try and interact with local, national and international companies as they try to reduce costs further and replace call centres and real people with AI bots.

Reading once used to be known as the UK’s Silicon valley, but the infotech cluster in the town has changed in recent years. Microsoft, a major funder of OpenAI and busily integrating its own Copilot AI into all its product, had its first European base in Reading, but by now is down from five to just one building at its Thames Valley Park Campus, and the reality is that almost all current major AI initiatives are coming out of the US, with the UK in danger of falling badly behind despite having some of the world’s leading AI research coming out of nearby Oxford University (along with Cambridge, Imperial and Google’s Deep Mind based in King’s Cross). There have been local AI startups such as Artelli42 who unfortunately didn’t make it in a very expensive and competitive market, but the better news is that Reading is becoming an important offshore base again for some of the new and old entrants into this market. Global AI companies like Dynatrace and Cloud Factory run their UK operations out offices in the Reading area. Indeed a recent study by Datacity indicated that there were over 170 AI focused companies in the Reading area with over 27,000 employees, including the main chip manufacturer behind the AI revolution, Nvidia which has a large office in Green Park. The good news is that Reading has ranked second or third in the UK in recent studies on places to set up an AI business.

Medical Impact

The biggest new inward investment in recent time has been by pharma giants Sanofi and their new campus on TVP, and medicine is another place where AI is already having a profound impact on this industry, streamlining drug discovery, improving diagnostics, and personalizing treatments. Machine learning algorithms can analyze vast datasets to identify potential drug candidates faster and at lower costs than traditional methods, accelerating the development of new medicines. AI also enhances clinical trials by predicting patient responses, reducing failures, and optimizing research processes. This automation and AI-driven analytics are displacing some traditional roles, particularly in research, data entry, and administrative tasks.

And this rolls out to our local hospitals. It is clear that there are some jobs that AI can’t do such as nursing and personal care. But already there are many robotic systems capable of undertaking surgery such as the da Vinci surgical system and other specialised systems from the likes of Brainlab, Medtronic and STAR for everything from spinal surgery to soft tissue surgery. But if you have a broken leg or a gash from a nasty fall in A&E, don’t expect AI to come to the rescue any time soon.

However, as it becomes more and more difficult to get GP appointments, AI has proven to be very good at diagnosis such as cancer detection, eye diseases, skin conditions and heart disease. Naturally, there are concerns about the adoption of such technologies - one joke is that AI provides better diagnostics than human doctors 99% of the time, but kills the parient 1% of the time - so finding the right balance in medical settings will be essential. However, with the strains the NHS is under, AI can provide significant benefits in many areas. Away from the ‘Large Language Models’ that can impressively interact with us as if they were almost super human is the development of ‘agents’. These are AIs designed to do very specific jobs (scan the Xray and tell me what’s wrong). This is where AI is most likely to impact your life day to day in the near future. In reality, as you visit the Royal Berkshire or other local hospitals or even GP surgeries, it is unlikely that you realise that AI is being used at all as it is gradually integrated into treatment patterns and procedures.

WIll AI Take Your Job ?

But what about jobs ? Will we ever need to work again ? Well, that depends on what your job involves.

Software development, a major employer in and around Reading is already becoming automated: routine coding tasks, data analysis, and even aspects of software development will be increasingly handled by machines. This may see a decline in the demand of services based in the town such as the coding giant Wipro.

This could lead to a restructuring of the workforce, with a potential for job displacement in certain areas and possibly even a knock on effects on the local rental market.

In the short term almost all non-physical jobs are under threat. AI can write good marketing copy and generate photographs and videos or even write music. Indeed, the creative sector is particularly threatened. Do you need the massive new Shinfield Studios when sets and even the actors can be AI generated ?

Dr Dominic Lees, artificial intelligence and synthetic media expert from the University of Reading’s School of Film, Theatre and Television, warns:

“The creative economy is the UK sector that is growing faster than other industries, represents nearly 6% of our GDP, and is hugely impacted by AI, yet the government's 'AI Opportunities Action Plan' appears to sideline it.  

“The commitment to investing in AI 'hardware' is great, but there are 'software' issues to resolve. How will government AI policy protect Intellectual Property, the creative output that powers future growth and income?  AI developers threaten to break creators' copyright and IP through internet 'scraping', which could lead to a contraction of the creative sector, not the growth that the government wants.  

“The AI Action Plan fails to address our thousands of creative SMEs and self-employed individuals, mentioning just the big companies. Small businesses are where innovation and growth come from, especially in the creative sector - government AI policy should aim to support them.”

Professional services are also particularly vulnerable – AI can generate good legal documents (that arguably should be checked by someone qualified), do accountancy and write HR handbooks.

AI can also process data, design processes and provide administrative support.

However, as Brit Professor Stuart Russell of UC Berkeley, a leading voice in AI research, has often stated, "The future of AI is not about replacing humans, but augmenting them."

In Reading, this augmentation will likely manifest in the rise of new roles focused on AI development, maintenance, and ethical oversight. Companies will need individuals skilled in prompt engineering, AI model training, and ensuring algorithmic fairness. This transition will require a substantial investment in reskilling and upskilling, a challenge the local educational establishments will need to be central to addressing. Many local companies such Bracknell headquartered John Lewis are already providing AI orientation courses for their staff and using AI in augmenting day to day tasks.

Even some physical jobs such as taxi, train and lorry drivers are likely to be gradually replaced with automated alternatives. To a great degree this technology already exists and has been operating for some time in American Cities and in trials in the UK in towns like Milton Keynes,

The good news for builders, roofers, carpet layers, care assistants, hairdressers, chefs and nail technicians is that your jobs are unlikely to be impacted in any significant way in the medium term, and this will probably make these already under-populated jobs even more valuable.

A report from McKinsey Global Institute on the future of work suggests, "The demand for social and emotional skills, as well as technological skills, will grow significantly."

AI For Local Government ?

Finally, our local council will face considerable challenges and opportunities. As mentioned, AI is unlikely to be useful for building social housing or caring for children or vulnerable adults, but it can be used to spot benefits cheats, control energy usage and improve traffic flow with better dynamic phasing of traffic lights.

Efficiencies could save money, but the need to invest in new systems and training will be significant cost sinks in the short term.