There is not even a clear idea that the public anywhere around the world has been offered of what kind of “AI” people in power are talking about—in the UK included—when they do talk about “AI.”
Is it some limited small subsets of AGI – artificial general intelligence – like machine learning (ML)?
And at this point, it’s not just a matter for nerds to think over, since in the UK, the authorities are trying to gain some fairly shocking “AI-grounds” – that affect everyday people’s lives even at the level of their health and other public data records.
Doesn’t look like it at first glance, but might as well be “sold” as such to the public – records in the National Health Service (NHS). Even cloud computing now seems to be thrown out – after so many years – as a matter of “sovereign internet services.”
And we’re not talking about the Russian Federation here. No, it’s the United Kingdom.
There, a new dataset – called the National Data Library – will be available to supposedly rigorously vetted “researchers and innovators.”
But that’s NHS health records and other public data, now allowed to be used to “train AI models.”
Anybody ready to “turbocharge” “AI” in this way will have to face the consequences at some later point. But right now – the current UK prime minister is happy to be publicly cited as being behind the “AI-driven Plan for Change.”
If anybody might have wondered – how exactly does a Tory government differ from a Labour one these days – well there it is.
The AI Opportunities Action Plan by Matt Clifford – incorporating “50 recommendations” including those related to people’s health records, is being pushed upon the population.
And who’s Clifford? Co-founder and former CEO of talent accelerator Entrepreneur First (EF), previously behind Conservative Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s “organize the world’s first global AI safety summit in 2023.”
Now, there he is, he comes back again, this time with Labour – as “tech entrepreneur and PM Starmer’s AI Opportunities Adviser.”
Good for Clifford and PM Starmer. Now – how about the people affected?
UK’s Data (Use and Access) Bill is being changed, according to privacy advocates such as Big Brother Watch.
Cabinet member Peter Kyle recently denied changing data protection laws.
“He’s doing that right now in the Data (Use and Access) Bill! Starmer’s huge AI push today is against the backdrop of government disinfo about this privacy erosion,” the group said.
