
Government cognitive dissonance over regulation
Kier Starmer this month laid out a vision of a decade of national AI-led renewal that identified regulatory light-touch to be the order of the day for any AI business wanting to relocate here. Within that AI Opportunities Action Plan, AI Action Zones are valorised as a key part of the government's pro-growth, pro-innovation and pro-risk investment plans to allow Britain to compete for and, hopefully, seize the AI future.
With the first AI Action Zone shortly due to land near Abingdon I question whether there are inconsistencies at the heart of government when it comes to our over-worked and under-resourced agencies, regulators and regulation? I do so because too many existing regulators and supervisory bodies are under-resourced and often asleep at the wheel, yet the government either wants to hyper-regulate existing successful industries (football) or else not do so at all (AI/Tech) on the promise of optimistic but less than stellar growth claims.
A case in point is Culham (near Abingdon and Oxford) which has been identified as the first AI Action Zone. Gossamer touch to absent regulation will, apparently, see cutting edge AI thrive as server farms bloom powered by the fleets of mini-nuclear reactors (SMRs), if required (while the AI Energy Council gets its act together).
Yet, on the other hand, the government are simultaneously currently trying to hyper regulate Association Football in England – to amongst other things protect heritage and community assets - yet the Premier League already leads the world and its risk profile is low. In April 2024, Deloitte’s Annual Review of Football Finance already valued the existing business of English football annually at £7.98bn^ with a total tax contribution of £4.28bn. While the Premier League says this involves more than 90,000 jobs overall.
Effectively, like both Johnson and Sunak before him, Prime Minister Starmer’s pro-growth ambitions came with a promise that initially there is going to be little or no restriction to whatever AI companies want to do within these AI Zones. The government message is: ‘please, come here and take pro-growth high risks rather than go elsewhere in the world’. The future benefits for AI Action Zones the Prime Minister forecast are “£14bn new investment in data centres…creating another 12,000 jobs”. Sadly this bright new future lasted less than fortnight as DeepSeek news from China effectively called into question many aspects of agreed AI thinking, not least the assumption that ever bigger server farms were what would power innovation and progress in generative AI.
From a government regulation point of view, we're open for business with speculative AI businesses that don’t yet exist on a hands-off basis, yet - if you're a Culham, Abingdon or Oxford resident – you are likelier to get consulted over the design of the team badge/crest at Oxford United but not going about a mini nuclear reactor possibly ending up powering the AI Action Zone down the road? Clearly if AI needs no regulation to thrive, you have to ask ‘why does a thriving football scene demand a new regulator?’
Though there are many bigger regulatory issues for the government to address, perhaps it is good news that the football regulator is also possibly going to give fans a say in how their club is run? Albeit this consultation will be more of the toothless variety - what beer is served on match day - than serious operational and strategic matters. In contrast, there won't be any say allowed from the local community about the environmental and lived heritage impacts of eco-unfriendly server farms extracting significant water out of the new Abingdon reservoir to cool them down.
The Culham experience is emblematic of government on the one hand flip-flopping between wanting hyper stringent new ‘independent’ regulators for football (though push back is ongoing) or boasting they want none at all for AI; while remaining insouciant about the performance and effectiveness (or otherwise) of the existing regulators and regulatory agencies they control.
Notes
^ Premier League £6.384bn| Women’s Super league £48m| Championship £749m| League 1 £236m| league 2 £131m
Photo credit: Bonhams: Henry H. Parker ‘The Thames at Culham’ (1912)