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Even by the breathless standards of previous technology hype cycles, the generative artificial intelligence enthusiasts have been hyperventilating hard. 

Trillion-dollar companies, including Alphabet and Microsoft, declare that AI is the new electricity or fire and are re-engineering their entire businesses around it. Never knowingly outhyped, venture capital investors have been pumping money into the sector, too. Fifty of the most promising generative AI start-ups, identified by CB Insights, have raised more than $19bn in funding since 2019. Of these, 11 now count as unicorns with valuations above $1bn.

Even the sober suits at McKinsey estimate that the technology could add between $2.6tn to $4.4tn of economic value annually across 63 examples of use it analysed, ranging from banking to life sciences. In other words, in very rough terms, generative AI could create a new UK economy every year (the country’s gross domestic product was $3.1tn in 2021).