The UK government and artificial intelligence: embracing the vampire
Soundings - Print ISSN 1362-6620 - Online ISSN 1741-0797
Volume 2025 Number 90 & 91
The UK government and artificial intelligence: embracing the vampire
Carl Rowlands pages 123‑141
DOI: 10.3898/SOUN:90-91.08.2025
Abstract
The UK government has increasingly committed itself to full-scale adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across government services and planning. Its flagship policy is its AI Opportunities Action Plan. This article engages critically with the various spheres impacted by this approach: data protection and data predation; the National Health Service and Palantir; education; the military; surveillance; political economy; climate change; tech sovereignty. It contrasts the weaknesses and dangers of AI with the stated primary motivations for the Starmer administration’s advocacy. It argues that the UK government’s relationship with ‘Artificial Intelligence’ cannot be understood solely as relating to what is technically or scientifically appropriate: it is also intimately linked to public discourses around the value of creativity and learning; particular axes of capital, power and influence; and, in geopolitical terms, Britain’s increasingly subservient relationship to its erstwhile ally, the United States of America.
To cite this article
Carl Rowlands (2025) The UK government and artificial intelligence: embracing the vampire, Soundings, 2025(90 & 91 ), 123-141 . https://doi.org/10.3898/SOUN:90-91.08.2025