Sadiq Khan’s warnings about AI has made London look like a city anxious, rather than ambitious, about AI. Investors will take note, writes Kulveer Ranger

London has heard this warning before. The current Mayor of London has proclaimed that artificial intelligence (AI) could trigger an “era of mass unemployment” in the capital. Alongside this, City Hall will announce a new taskforce on AI and the future of work, plus free AI training for Londoners. Preparing people for change is sensible. But Mayor Khan’s framing of AI primarily as a threat risks repeating a familiar and costly mistake made by many who don’t understand how business and particularly the tech industry work. I know this because we have been here before.

In 2010, when I established City Hall’s first Digital Office, London was standing on the brink of the app economy and a data-driven revolution. At the time, many voices raised similar alarms: technology would destroy jobs, hollow out industries and concentrate opportunity elsewhere. Instead, London chose to lead. The result was one of the most transformative growth periods in the city’s modern economic history.

Between 2009 and 2012 alone, the number of digital and technology firms in London surged from around 50,000 to more than 88,000. These businesses employed approximately 582,000 people and........

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