The discussion of a £2 billion UK-wide ChatGPT Plus subscription was an exercise in exploring the “art of the possible” for a nation with AI superpower ambitions. While the idea was fleeting and ultimately impractical, it served to stretch the boundaries of conventional policy thinking.
The meeting between Technology Secretary Peter Kyle and OpenAI’s Sam Altman provided a forum for this kind of ambitious, blue-sky thinking. The proposal to equip every citizen with a premium AI tool was less a concrete plan and more a conceptual probe into what a truly AI-integrated society could look like.
Sources indicate the idea was never a serious contender for implementation due to its cost. Its value was not in its viability, but in its ability to spark a conversation about the scale of intervention needed to achieve the UK’s lofty AI goals.
This kind of exploratory dialogue is a crucial, if often unseen, part of the policy process. It allows leaders to consider radical futures and test the limits of current financial and political constraints, even if the outcome is a return to more incremental and pragmatic solutions.