Neil Duncan-Jordan, MP for Poole has called for an AI strategy “for the people and planet” saying that the public is right to be deeply suspicious that the gains of this technology will all go to big investors.
Speaking at the AI panel at the Tolpuddle Festival, he said that a small number of tech companies embedded in our daily lives now have the power to control public discourse. “What we have effectively done as a society is subcontracted our right to information to those big tech companies.”
The MP called for a campaign to protect meaningful and dignified work. Companies should be obliged to disclose when they are using AI, with unions having the right to negotiate greater protection and retraining and the public having greater involvement in decisions. “We have to, as our golden rule, ensure that AI benefits us all and doesn’t just make a few tech companies that are already rich even richer. “
“The wealth created by these big tech companies is built on our data. It is built on public data. It is also public research and public investment.”
He said that the market always promotes automation that strips out jobs and degrades those still left in work. He highlighted environmental concerns around data centres expanding to feed this new industry, saying that an average sized data centre will use the same amount of electricity as 100,000 homes, without a requirement to use renewables to generate it.
Neil Duncan-Jordan studied journalism at Bournemouth University and worked for a time with the National Pensioners Convention. He was chair of the Bournemouth & Dorset NUJ Branch for several years before taking up a post as a regional officer for UNISON. In 2024, he was elected as the first ever Labour MP for Poole.