Technology and People: Deloitte Report

Lord Holmes of Richmond Excerpts

Wednesday 13th April 2016 Lords Chamber

[Lord Holmes of Richmond (Con)]

My Lords, it is pleasure to follow the noble Lord, Lord Haskel. Although it was not in my speech, I am now very much imagining in my head being “On the Buses” with a younger Lord Haskel, with Blakey chasing after him saying, “I’ll get you, Haskel”.

It is a pleasure to speak in this debate. I congratulate my noble friend Lord Borwick on securing such an interesting and timely debate, and commend the report from Deloitte on this subject. We have the highest level of employment ever and a good standard of living. We have rule of law, parliamentary democracy and freedom of speech. But why do we have such negativity as a start point to the potential of technology? Since 1950, the real price of a telly has reduced by 98%. Some may argue that there has been a direct link with the percentage reduction in programme quality over that same time period. But with stuff being available and cheap in a liberal democracy, why is the start point such negativity? I believe that this has nothing to do with technology and much to do with the very start point of our society and education—the classification that we learn in class when learning about things and, a little later, when learning about the relationship between those things. In the process of putting that classification to ourselves, we immediately make ourselves prime and everything else “other”. We seek to divide civilisation and barbarianism, culture and nature, the human and almost everything else. That is artificial and unhelpful. Having done that classification, it is unsurprising that we then feel the isolation which ensues and the fear of the other—in this example, technology. This is as good a case as any to argue for the pressing need for character education and creativity in the education process to enable resilience, self-reliance, self-belief, plasticity, flexibility, adaptability—everything that should always have been needed from education, and everything which, going forward, will be essential from education.

We should not be afeared. I say to my noble friend the Minister that I see absolutely no potential of her ever being replaced by a machine. Our start point comes from a classification, a division, which then inevitably leads to the social construct of the conflict between technology and humanity and between man and machine. Why should that be the start point? When you consider the internet of things, artificial intelligence, robotics and big data, this is a phenomenal time to be alive. When Wordsworth stood on Westminster Bridge, he spoke of a time to be alive. What would he have said about this time to be alive? With all this possibility and potential, why do we have a negative start point? At least the start point should be neutral, if not have some initial positivity, because all this stuff has the potential to solve so many of the problems currently facing society. It is transformational. Dare I go further? I believe that in many ways this alone has the potential to save our National Health Service. Pouring more money in does not solve anything. Looking at smart, innovative, transformational ways of doing things—that is where the magic is. But none of this will happen as a matter of course. That is why I think at best a neutral stance, if not a slightly positive one, is the right place to start with technology. By the same token, how we relate to and position ourselves to technology will determine how much of this potential is realised. Technology itself will not solve problems; rather our relationship with technology will do so. Take inclusion, for example. In 2014, 4,000 young people took A-level computer science. Of that 4,000, only 100 were female. That is not a problem of technology or of computers; rather, it is a problem related to stuff that was knitted in way before those young people got anywhere near the A-level options and choices.

The Deloitte report also highlights the stark statistic that 35% of jobs are in danger of automation. Does this mean that we are all heading towards a jobless future, with joy gone? I do not believe so because by the same token by the end of this decade—never mind the decades to come—we will need more than 1 million new jobs in the digital space. As the noble Lord, Lord Giddens, said, this is happening at a pace far faster than the Industrial Revolution. We are already well under way. But we should not be afeared. If we relate to technology in the right way, its possibilities can be released. I do not believe that we need to seek to control this process. We need to enable the fluidity and the flow to be free. We should determine general principles and the general direction and be happy with that—not afraid. We cannot know where this is going. But that should not be a cause of fear; we should be happy about not having complete knowledge or complete control. Look how things have developed in the past. It took decades after the discovery of electricity for it to really drive our society and economy. After the invention of the steam engine to pump water out of flooded mines, there was a great distance to travel until we got to Stephenson’s “Rocket”. It is what my noble friend Lord Ridley, who is sadly not in his place, describes as ideas having sex—the sense that you do not know what will come out. There will be dead ends and misconnections but stuff will come from that process if we just enable it and be happy for it to run its course.

The path is not clear but that is no reason for us to be afeared. It is not clear but neither is it merely paved with good intentions. We should strive forward with considered confidence into a future fuelled by technology and increased productivity. We should focus on our relationship with that world, not be on the outside looking in. To draw on those fine words of EM Forster, we should focus and “only connect”.