In a recent interview with the Economist, Elon Musk, the world’s first and only trillionaire, claimed that in five years’ time artificial intelligence will surpass that of human beings, predicting an age of amazing abundance. UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham takes a more nuanced view, with his team reportedly expressing scepticism about courting US tech companies and the roll-out of self-driving cars. Burnham has appointed Kanishka Narayan as minister for AI, who told the Financial Times that the government rejects “tech boosterism” and will implement regulation to deal with the “material risks” posed by AI to jobs and national security. Financial Times journalist Sarah O’Connor’s book, We Are Not Machines, details the story of freelance translator Petr Cermoch, who in 2022, when Open AI introduced Chat GPT, found job openings and pay for translators cratered, with him being asked to correct machine output for 70% less money. A recent US-based study found that in the year to July 2025, drivers in cities with significant self-driving vehicle operations experienced substantial wage erosion. In May 2026, former prime minister Keir Starmer’s government opened applications for operators to run self-driving taxis across the UK, stating their introduction would create thousands of jobs and allow billions to flow into the economy by 2035.