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Former UK prime minister says public trust could become a bigger barrier to AI adoption than technology itself
India’s debate around artificial intelligence is far more positive than in the West and the United States, former British prime minister Rishi Sunak said on Thursday, warning that public distrust could become a major obstacle to the technology’s development and adoption.
“Let’s be frank. As we heard from Karen earlier, the conversation about AI in my country, and even more so in the US, is far more negative than what we see here in incredibly positive and optimistic India,” Sunak said at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum in New Delhi.
He said concerns about artificial intelligence needed to be addressed if the technology was to deliver its economic and social benefits. In Western countries, he argued, public acceptance would be critical to determining how far AI could advance.
“In the West, it is trust, not technology, that threatens to be our limiting factor when it comes to AI,” Sunak said.
“Until we can show people how this technology is going to empower them rather than replace or harm them, this is going to remain the case.”
Sunak’s remarks come as governments and businesses assess how to deploy AI across industries while addressing concerns about its impact on jobs, public services and society. He said that the debate should move beyond the race to build the most advanced AI systems and focus on how the technology can be used across economies.
More from BusinessAI adoption will determine economic winners
Sunak said much of the attention surrounding artificial intelligence had focused on the race to develop artificial general intelligence (AGI), which refers to AI capable of performing a broad range of intellectual tasks.
However, he argued that the more consequential contest would be to spread AI’s benefits across businesses, public services and society.
“The real race to focus on is the race for what I call everyday AI, the race to spread the benefits of this technology through every part of our economy and our society,” he said.
According to Sunak, a country’s success in technology depends not only on its ability to invent new systems but also on how effectively it adopts them.
He cited the printing press as an example, arguing that although Johannes Gutenberg invented it in Germany in the 15th century, the Dutch Republic extracted significant economic value from the technology through its publishing industry, financial markets and more permissive environment for printing.
The lesson, he said, was that technological invention alone does not guarantee economic leadership.
“The biggest winners are going to be those countries, those companies, those organizations that adopt, adopt, adopt,” Sunak said.
He pointed to digitally literate Indian workforce, digital public infrastructure and startup ecosystem as factors that could support wider AI adoption. He also highlighted the country’s approach to developing solutions at relatively low cost.
India’s digital payments infrastructure, including the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), and the emergence of domestic AI businesses were among the strengths he cited.
Sunak also referred to India’s position in a Stanford University ranking of global AI powers, saying the country had recently overtaken the UK to rank third. The specific ranking and its methodology would need to be checked against the underlying Stanford report.
Public trust is central to AI’s future
Sunak warned that public opposition to artificial intelligence could grow quickly if people believed the technology threatened their jobs or caused harm.
He said public opinion could shift faster than the technology itself spreads, pointing to growing political opposition to data centres in the US as an example of the challenges facing the industry.
“What is the most important thing for AI development? Public consent,” he said.
“Without that, progress simply isn’t possible. You can have all the compute you need, but without democratic consent, you won’t be able to develop and deploy this technology in a free society.”
He cautioned against waiting for a major AI-related accident before governments and businesses agree on safeguards. Such an approach, he said, could lead to a public backlash and sweeping regulation that might slow both AI development and deployment.
Sunak said AI safety and technological progress should be pursued together rather than treated as competing objectives.
“I’ve always thought that AI progress and AI safety go hand in hand,” he said.
AI could expand access to education and healthcare
Sunak said AI could help deliver solutions in agriculture, healthcare and education at a fraction of the cost that would have been required a generation ago.
As an example, he cited Mindspark, an education programme developed in India that he said was teaching half a million pupils across India and Africa. The programme uses technology to provide personalised lessons, he said, with students recording a doubling in their rate of learning.
Sunak said the programme did not depend on high-speed broadband or expensive computers. Instead, it could operate through a simple tablet with preloaded content based on years of research and billions of student interactions, according to his account.
He argued that such applications showed how AI could extend services that had previously been accessible mainly to wealthier households.
The broader opportunity, he said, was to use AI to improve productivity while ensuring that its benefits reached more people.
“AI can help deliver, and already is delivering, solutions in agriculture, healthcare, education, at a fraction of what it would cost a generation ago,” he said.
AI’s impact could surpass earlier technological revolutions
Sunak described artificial intelligence as a technology that could transform not only industries but also the way people acquire knowledge and develop new ideas.
He referred to estimates from Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis that AI could have 10 times the impact of the Industrial Revolution in half the time. Sunak said the technology could be compared with both the Industrial Revolution and the Enlightenment, as well as the printing press, which expanded access to knowledge.
“In fact, AI will be the biggest transfer of knowledge in human history,” he said.
According to the figures he cited, the telephone took 70 years, electricity 50 years, personal computers 15 years and the internet seven years. ChatGPT reached the milestone in two months, he said.
The speed of adoption, he said, makes it more urgent for governments and businesses to establish safeguards while ensuring that the technology is deployed widely.
“AI is the most remarkable tool that the human race has ever invented,” he said, describing it as a technology that could help people discover and create new tools.
“AI gives us a chance for another such moment, one that can raise the floor for humanity, a future where technology doesn’t just make economies more productive, but empowers people and makes their lives better,” Sunak said.
