“You know suddenly you’re going to be onto bringing the costs down.”
In a bizarre interview, Boris Johnson talked effusively about Chat GPT helping him to write his books and said it should be used to make care cheaper for older people and those with disabilities.
Johnson said he sees “great promise in this technology because we’re all simple, we’re human beings.”
The Tory former prime minister said looking after older people, people with disabilities and the welfare system more broadly costs “an absolute fortune”.
“If you have automated systems that can engage with people and say ‘ah Mrs Miggins, it’s time for your pill. You need to do this. Do you need any help with your shopping? I can get you somebody.’”.
“You know suddenly you’re going to be onto bringing the costs down,” Johnson told Al Arabiya English.
AI can provide prompts and reminders, but it cannot provide the care that a human does.
During the covid-19 pandemic, Johnson was heavily criticised for ordering the discharge of 25,000 people from hospitals into care homes in order to clear NHS beds, including some who were infected with Covid-19.
Between early March and early June 2020, nearly 20,000 care home residents in England and Wales died from Covid-19.
Johnson also admitted he uses Chat GPT to write his books. He praised Chat GPT, saying “I love AI”, before asking the interviewer: “Do you use AI, […] Do you use Chat GPT?”.
Johnson said: “I love Chat GPT. I love it. Chat GPT is fantastic.”
Asked what he uses Chat GPT for, Johnson said he is writing “various books” and that he uses it to “ask questions”.
He also said that he loved that Chat GPT calls him “clever. “It always says ‘oh you’re so clever, you’re brilliant, you’re excellent, you have such insight. I love it,” he told the journalist.
Since leaving office, Johnson has made £5.1 million from delivering 34 speeches between October 2022 and May 2024.
Harper Collins paid him a £2 million advance for his book ‘Unleashed’, published in October 2024, which briefly topped the bestseller charts but then “slumped well below expectations”.
A recent Guardian investigation found that Boris Johnson used contacts he developed as prime minister to lobby for business deals in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.
He was also paid £240,000 by hedge fund Merlyn Advisors to meet Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.
Reports in early 2024 revealed Johnson’s involvement with the hedge fund and its founder, Maarten Petermann. Johnson met with Petermann a week before the end of his time as prime minister.
Acoba wrote to Johnson in March 2024, but the leaked files show that he had actually signed a contract with the hedge fund months earlier, in 2023.
Olivia Barber is a reporter at Left Foot Forward
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