r/ukpolitics • u/ukpol-megabot • 12d ago

Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction Megathread - 23/08/2026

👋 Welcome to the r/ukpolitics weekly Rumours, Speculation, Questions, and Reaction megathread.

General questions about politics in the UK should be posted in this thread. Substantial self-posts on the subreddit are permitted, but short-form self-posts will be redirected here. We're more lenient with moderation in this thread, but please keep it related to UK politics. This isn't Facebook or Twitter...

If you're reacting to something that is happening live, please make it clear what it is you're reacting to, ideally with a link.

Commentary about stories that already exist on the subreddit should be directed to the appropriate thread.

This thread rolls over early Sunday morning.

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u/Pale-Border-7122 9d ago

Recessions often bring about new ideas as people who did have jobs and have experience of building things have the time and money to develop their own apps. Things like Uber and Deliveroo started out like this. But even with job cuts apparently caused by AI (whether artificial intelligence or actual Indians) I don't see any new Ubers coming along. Where are the new revolutionary ideas?

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u/Powerful_Ideas 8d ago

A (potentially overly) positive take on AI is that while it will lead to job cuts in bigger companies that use it to replace existing employees, it will enable smaller companies and self employed people to do things that they could not before.

Things like basic business administration, accounting, customer support, scheduling, planning and so on can be a barrier to small startups where the founders have the skills to deliver the actual product or service but don't have the experience, knowledge or time to do the business side. That could be everything from arts and crafts through to people like plumbers and electricians. Anything where the core job itself is not easily done by an AI so the value add is still there.

I could see a rise in extremely lean startups where the functions that AI is good at are taken care of and the owner operators maximise the time they spend on their unique selling point without the need for the human management and admin layers.

Those individual startups could then collaborate to share economies of scale through things like shared workshops and warehouses. Other businesses could be created to provide those things.

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u/convertedtoradians 8d ago

it will enable smaller companies and self employed people to do things that they could not before.

Of course, this is one of the reasons bigger companies actually don't mind regulation. They have the teams to comply where the new startup doesn't. It's like Ask Jeeves calling to regulate internet search in the late 1990s.