Building Abundance: How Britain can flourish in the age of AI
Britain struggles to build almost anything: houses, infrastructure, data centres, and everything else. Its economy is anaemic. It has the most expensive energy of almost anywhere in the world. Its labour market looks dangerously exposed to shocks to professional services. The British state is paralysed and unable to act.
Three years ago, these were important facts for anyone who cared about reviving Britain’s economy. Today, they will decide whether Britain flourishes in the age of AI, or goes the way of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth or 20th Century Argentina.
Join us at Building Abundance: How Britain can flourish in the age of AI, a day of ideas for rebuilding Britain’s economy and state so it can adapt to and embrace artificial intelligence and other opportunities for growth.
It will be held on Thursday 3rd December at the LSE, from 1pm to 7:30pm (doors open 1pm for a 1:20pm start). It’s hosted by Works in Progress in association with the LSE Law School and School of Public Policy. Tickets are free.
Our keynote sessions feature Dominic Cummings and Morgan McSweeney in conversation on the decline and fall of British state capacity, and John Fingleton on what the government has and has not done to put his review of nuclear regulation into effect, one year after committing to implement it in full.
Other speakers include:
Sam Bowman, Ben Southwood and Samuel Hughes on why nearly every attempt to get Britain building has failed;
Rachel Wolf on what the public really thinks about economic growth and AI;
Luis Garicano on messy jobs and Britain’s labour market;
Julia Willemyns on why Britain needs gigawatt-scale compute, and how to get it built here;
Saloni Dattani on why fixing clinical trials is the best industrial policy Britain could have;
Michael Dnes on building the first new tunnel under the Pennines since 1954;
Robert Boswall on how to finance and power the data centre buildout; and
Daisy Christodoulou on why VAR matters for state capacity.
Doors close after the event begins and we cannot admit people after it has started. We look forward to seeing you there!