UK minister prepares contingency plan for potential AI-driven job disruption

AI minister Kanishka Narayan said the UK government is drawing up a contingency plan for possible severe job market disruption from artificial intelligence, despite no current evidence of overall employment decline. Narayan told a Labour conference event that the government needed to prepare ahead, noting that companies may be cutting recruitment due to AI automation without explicitly attributing hiring decisions to it. The Institute for Public Policy Research warned that around eight million UK jobs could be affected in a worst-case scenario, with administrative roles among the most vulnerable. The government is considering changes to labour policy and regulation if disruption accelerates, plus measures to increase worker transparency and say in how technology is deployed.