‘The first AI culture war is here – and Labour could lose it’

While the world focuses on tariffs, a new culture war is forming, this time around AI.

It has been a tough few weeks for the Labour government. The Spring Statement left the government third in Westminster polling intention as it enters its ninth month in power. 

To add insult to injury, Trump’s scattergun tariffs may quickly dash any hopes of economic growth that Starmer and Reeves had before the end of the year. This is even as Starmer showed some signs of international leadership and popularity, with the moves to defend Ukraine from a disengaged US administration and some massaging of American egos.  

Sadly, Starmer’s government is now back in the news for its established economic and political strategy. This involves painful and unpopular spending cuts predicated on the belief that economic growth may come later in the parliament, thanks to investments in energy infrastructure, housing, and technology. If that happens, and it’s a big if, then voters will forget the hard decisions at the start of the parliament.

Tech is the promised land of UK economic growth

On this, the government is touting tech, and more specifically AI, as a driver of labour productivity for both the public and private sectors. The announcement of the AI Opportunities Action Plan in January was followed by a £3.25bn ‘Transformation Fund’ presented at the Spring Statement itself, earmarked to put tech and AI at the centre of public sector reform. 

There is good reason to believe that AI will increase productivity across economies, and even that it’s already happening. That is great news for mature, ageing economies like the UK, which suffer from skills shortages but are politically not in a position to increase migration. 

It can also become a good news story if AI can boost areas the UK has expertise in, like life sciences research. AI used towards potentially life-saving scientific discoveries can, after all, only be a good thing.

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The AI brand is in crisis

However, while the government charges forward towards embracing AI for its potential to help grow the economy and save lives, the average voter is going the opposite direction. 

Voters’ views on AI in general and its applications particularly have remained fairly pessimistic over the past few years.

People generally don’t see how AI is being used for good, but they see plenty of occasions where it is misused. This can be inaccurate information, deepfakes or even financial fraud. 

Most worryingly, the UK public doesn’t trust that the Government (of any stripe) can effectively regulate AI, which is precisely the thing that would make the public trust it more.

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The public sees AI companies as copyright thieves

Nowhere are these harms more visible than in journalism and the arts. Here, the public is exposed daily to AI-driven misinformation, news of human artists being replaced by AI, and uses of intellectual property that may skirt copyright law.  

In Hollywood, actors and writers staged months-long strikes last summer over the use of their work and likeness to train AI that could replace them. 

Here in the UK, campaigns like #MakeItFair from print media publications, and protests over Meta’s alleged use of ‘shadow libraries’ to scrape copyrighted books are building the public’s image of AI companies as ‘IP thieves’ and AI as a harm to creatives.

This matters, not just because the UK creative industries continue to outperform other areas of the economy, despite Brexit and the pandemic. The arts, journalism, and media are populated by the educated, city-dwelling, left-leaning voters that the Labour Party wants to keep happy ahead of the next election. 

When the Labour government is seen unequivocally embracing AI, without making the case for distinguishing between harmful and beneficial uses of the technology, it damages its credibility for fairness in front of the core voters it needs to keep on side. 

It’s the messaging, stupid

The government would say that it has put forward the AI bill, which is set to protect creators. It has also made clear that a swathe of cases of potential copyright infringement fall outside of the UK Government’s jurisdiction, and therefore there isn’t much they can do. 

The problem is that a dangerous false choice may start building in people’s minds about AI, in the absence of effective regulation around the technology. Deregulate and grow the economy, or regulate to protect artists. 

That is a very advantageous framing for the Conservatives or Reform to occupy. If they do, and they’re successful, it won’t matter that the Labour Party has passed legislation to mitigate the risks of AI. They will be seen as both stifling innovation and not standing up for people’s own work. 

There is a path for the Labour government to thread the needle of an argument around the fair but boosted use of AI to the public. But if they’re not careful, this culture war will grow into another fire to control ahead of the next general election, regardless of the good economic news around it.

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