Scotland’s AI Revolution: Get Off Your Arse and Build Something
Look, I’m not speaking from a position of authority here, but I trust that the majority of Scots agree with me when I say: we’re pissing away our potential. Scotland has everything it needs to become Europe’s AI powerhouse—brilliant universities, engineering heritage, energy infrastructure that could power half the continent, and cities that used to actually mean something. Yet here we are, watching Berlin, Amsterdam, and bloody Stockholm lap us while our government fiddles about with consultations and feasibility studies.
This is a position I find difficult to understand. If it’s important to you that Scotland remains relevant in the 21st century, that our cities aren’t just tourist traps serving deep-fried Mars bars to bemused Americans, what gave you the idea that we could achieve that without going all-in on AI and tech? The current approach is completely incompatible with reality. We all made a decision when we let other countries race ahead. If any of us didn’t understand the ramifications of that decision, we only have ourselves to blame.
Where does this leave us? We have exactly two options:
Option 1: Accept that Scotland becomes a backwater, that our brightest minds keep buggering off to London or San Francisco, and that Edinburgh and Glasgow turn into museum pieces where people used to do things. Take solace in the fact we’ve got nice scenery.
Option 2: Wake the fuck up and build something.
I want Option 2. I want to see autonomous vehicles navigating Princes Street. Not in 2040. Not “when the regulations are sorted.” Now. I want our NHS—creaking, underfunded, drowning in administrative nonsense—fixed by AI systems that actually work. Diagnosis tools, appointment scheduling, resource allocation. The technology exists. We’re just too timid to deploy it properly.
I want to see our education system revolutionised. Personalised learning AI that adapts to each student. No more one-size-fits-all teaching that leaves half the class behind and bores the other half senseless. We’ve got world-class universities in Edinburgh, Glasgow, St Andrews—yet we’re not translating that academic excellence into commercial reality fast enough.
Edinburgh and Glasgow should be absolutely teeming with AI startups. We’ve got the talent pipeline. We’ve got research institutions doing cutting-edge work in machine learning, robotics, natural language processing. We’ve got a defence and aerospace sector that understands complex engineering. We’ve got renewable energy infrastructure that could power massive compute clusters. We’ve got everything except the political will to make it happen.
And here’s what really gets my goat: this obsession with remote work and “distributed teams.” I want our city centres full again. I want people commuting in, grabbing coffee, having spontaneous conversations that spark ideas, building companies, creating jobs that matter. Cities are meant to be alive—chaotic, energetic, occasionally frustrating, but alive. Not ghost towns at 3pm because everyone’s on Zoom calls from their kitchen in Inverness.
The Scottish Government needs to stop fannying about. Massive tax incentives for AI companies. Simplified visa processes for tech talent. Public procurement that favours Scottish AI solutions. Partnerships between universities and industry that actually produce commercial products, not just papers no one reads. Investment in infrastructure—compute power, data centres, the works.
This isn’t about politics. This is about whether Scotland matters in thirty years or whether we’re just a nice place people’s grandparents came from. Whether our children have careers here or whether they’re booking one-way flights south because there’s nothing for them.
We can either pioneer or we can fade into irrelevance whilst wringing our hands about “doing it responsibly” and “considering all stakeholders.”
I know which Scotland I want to live in. The question is: does anyone in charge have the spine to build it?
This shite has to stop.