The UK’s AI strategy: South West tech leaders share their thoughts
The UK Government announced this month its intentions to host “the first major global summit on AI safety” in September.
SWTD has spoken to prominent AI experts in the South West to share their views.
“Breakthroughs from AI continue to improve our lives”, the Government announcement states, “from enabling paralysed people to walk to discovering superbug-killing antibiotics. But the development of AI is extraordinarily fast moving and this pace of change requires agile leadership.
“That is why the UK is taking action, because we have a global duty to ensure this technology is developed and adopted safely and responsibly.”
AI has been a hot topic since the launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT in November 2022.
ChatGPT is a natural language processing tool capable of reproducing human-like language. Other AI software models to hit the headlines recently include the image-generating Midjourney and Microsoft Copilot.
Fears around the safety of AI have been raised by leading figures in the field, with “the godfather of artificial intelligence” Geoffrey Hinton recently departing his role at Google so he could more freely criticise the industry.
“These things could get more intelligent than us”, Hinton warned, “and could decide to take over, and we need to worry now about how we prevent that happening.”
Announcing the planned global summit on AI safety, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak said: “AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better. But we need to make sure it is developed and used in a way that is safe and secure.
“Time and time again throughout history we have invented paradigm-shifting new technologies and we have harnessed them for the good of humanity. That is what we must do again.
“No one country can do this alone. This is going to take a global effort. But with our vast expertise and commitment to an open, democratic international system, the UK will stand together with our allies to lead the way.”
"AI has an incredible potential to transform our lives for the better."
Rishi Sunak, UK Prime Minsiter
Anthony Peake, CEO of Exeter-based Intelligent AI, said his stance was “on the positive side of AI.”
He told SWTD: “Whilst I agree we need to properly research the negative implications of AI, I see huge benefits for removing admin, improving structured data and freeing up humans to do valuable work and letting the machines augment the more manual and admin functions.
“We are seeing a lot of benefits in Financial Services and Insurance, and also in risk management.”
"I see huge benefits for removing admin, improving structured data and freeing up humans to do valuable work"
Anthony Peake, CEO of Exeter-based Intelligent AI
Questions remain around how the Government intends to regulate this fast-growing industry, and who will be involved in making key decisions.
Karin Rudolph, Founder of Collective Intelligence UK, told SWTD: "When it comes to AI, it is crucial to involve a wide range of stakeholders, including universities and civil society organisations in decisions that will impact society as a whole.
“Additionally, the government needs to clarify how it will balance its current light-touch approach to regulations with the need to build safe AI systems.”
The South West accounts for 5% of the UK’s AI activity, according to Government research.
"The government needs to clarify how it will balance its current light-touch approach to regulations with the need to build safe AI systems.”
Karin Rudolph, Founder of Collective Intelligence UK
Tech South West has launched a new networking group, AI South West, for tech professionals in the region to share learnings around this industry and deepen understanding.
The group is free to join via https://www.techsouthwest.co.uk/ai-south-west/
