Dr. Sasha Rubel:

This feeds back to my first comment in terms of skills. There is a dearth of understanding of what AI can and cannot do. It goes back to educating businesses, particularly small-scale businesses, and individuals to understand what AI can do for their organisations and also for them as individuals.

I will reflect very quickly on something that was said earlier. In a report we recently commissioned, which was released in February, we found that one of the demographics most interested in learning new AI skills are individuals close to retirement. They said they absolutely would like to learn these skills because they are conscious that this technology will completely transform the ways in which they access information. My 94-year-old father is using a generative AI chatbot in order to understand how to access his social security benefits. Previously, YouTube was a miracle for him. He understands how to use that generative AI chatbot. My 18-year-old daughter wants to be a prompt engineer. Without telling the committee how old I am, prompt engineering did not exist as a career when I was in college.

We really need to address the understanding of what this technology is and what it can do for people across the board, from my 18-year-old daughter to my 94-year-old father. These are the innovators who will create the solutions that have an impact on access to public services, on start-ups for social impact and all those areas. Skills are a key aspect. In parallel, we need initiatives that help start-ups to scale up and to understand that blockers, such as regulatory uncertainty and access to compute, are things that can be addressed through initiatives that build on public-private co-operation.