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Forbes
2 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
UK Announces Deal With OpenAI To Augment Public Services And AI Power
UK and OpenAI Announce a new MOU OpenAI and the United Kingdom's Department for Science, Innovation and Technology signed a joint memorandum of understanding yesterday that sets out an ambitious joint plan to put OpenAI's models to work in day-to-day government tasks, to build new computing hubs on British soil, and to share security know-how between company engineers and the UK's AI Safety Institute. The agreement is voluntary and doesn't obligate the UK in any exclusive manner, yet the commitments are concrete: both sides want pilot projects running inside the civil service within the next twelve months. Details of the Joint MOU The memorandum identifies four key areas of joint innovation. It frames AI as a tool to raise productivity, speed discovery and tackle social problems, provided the public is involved so trust grows alongside capability. The partners will look for concrete deployments of advanced models across government and business, giving civil servants, small firms and start-ups new ways to navigate rules, draft documents and solve hard problems in areas such as justice, defence and education. To run those models at scale, they will explore UK-based data-centre capacity, including possible 'AI Growth Zones,' so critical workloads remain onshore and available when demand peaks. Finally, the deal deepens technical information-sharing with the UK AI Security Institute, creating a feedback loop that tracks emerging capabilities and risks and co-designs safeguards to protect the public and democratic norms. OpenAI also plans to enlarge its London office, currently at more than 100 staff, to house research and customer-support AI CEO Sam Altman has long been interested in the UK as a region for AI development because of the UK's long history in AI research, most notably starting with Alan Turing. 'AI will be fundamental in driving the change we need to see across the country, whether that's in fixing the NHS, breaking down barriers to opportunity or driving economic growth,' said UK Technology Secretary, Peter Kyle. 'That's why we need to make sure Britain is front and centre when it comes to developing and deploying AI, so we can make sure it works for us.' Altman echoed the ambition, calling AI 'a core technology for nation building' and urging Britain to move from planning to delivery. The Increasing Pace of Governmental AI Adoption and Funding Universities in London, Cambridge and Oxford supply a steady stream of machine-learning talent. Since the Bletchley Park summit in 2023, the UK has positioned itself as a broker of global safety standards, giving investors a sense of legal stability. And with a sluggish economy, ministers need a credible growth story; large-scale automation of paperwork is an easy pitch to voters. The UK offers scientists clear rules and public money. The UK government has already promised up to £500 million for domestic compute clusters and is reviewing bids for 'AI Growth Zones'. Three factors explain the timing. The UK is not alone in its AI ambitions. France has funnelled billions into a joint venture with Mistral AI and Nvidia, while Germany is courting Anthropic after its own memorandum with DSIT in February. The UK believes its head start with OpenAI, still the best-known brand in generative AI, gives it an edge in landing commercial spin-offs and high-paid jobs. Risks that could derail the plan Kyle knows that any mis-step, such as an AI bot giving faulty benefit advice, could sink trust. That is why the memorandum pairs deployment with security research and reserves the right for civil-service experts to veto outputs that look unreliable. The UK has had a long history with AI, and the risks posed by lack of progress. Notably, the infamous Lighthill report in 1973 was widely credited with contributing the first 'AI Winter', a marked period of decline of interest and funding in AI. As such, careful political consideration of AI is key to ensuring ongoing support. Public-sector unions may resist widespread automation, arguing that AI oversight creates as much work as it saves. Likewise there is widespread concern of vendor lock-in with the deal with OpenAI. By insisting on locally owned data centres and keeping the MOU open to additional suppliers, ministers hope to avoid a repeat of earlier cloud contracts that left sensitive workloads offshore and pricy relationships locked in. Finally, a single headline error, such as a chatbot delivering wrong tax guidance, for instance, could spark calls for a pause. However, the benefits currently outweigh the risks. No department stands to gain more than the UK's National Health Service, burdened by a record elective-care backlog. Internal modelling seen by officials suggests that automated triage and note-summarisation tools could return thousands of clinical hours each week. If early pilots succeed, hospitals in Manchester and Bristol will be next in line. And OpenAI is not new to the UK government. A chatbot for small businesses has been live for months, and an internal assistant nicknamed 'Humphrey' now drafts meeting notes and triages overflowing inboxes. Another tool, 'Consult,' sorts thousands of public submissions in minutes, freeing policy teams for higher-level work. The new agreement aims to lift these trials out of the margins and weave them more fully into the fabric of government. What's Next Joint project teams will start by mapping use-cases in justice, defence and social care. They must clear privacy impact assessments before live trials begin. If those trials shave measurable hours off routine tasks, the Treasury plans to set aside money in the 2026 Autumn Statement for a phased rollout. UK's agreement with OpenAI is an experiment in modern statecraft. It tests whether governmental organizations can deploy privately built, high-end models while keeping control of data and infrastructure. Success would mean delivering the promised benefits while avoiding the significant risks. Failure would reinforce arguments that large language models remain better at publicity than at public service.
Engadget
3 days ago
- Business
- Engadget
OpenAI is getting closer with the UK government
The UK government has announced a new strategic partnership with OpenAI that could lead the company to "expand AI security research collaborations, explore investing in UK AI infrastructure like data centers, and find new ways for taxpayer funded services" to use AI. The move follows the introduction of the AI Action Plan in January, which fast-tracks the construction of data centers in certain regions of the UK. In the (entirely voluntary) partnership agreement — technically a Memorandum of Understanding — OpenAI and the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) agree to tackle positive-sounding, but ultimately vague tasks things like finding ways for "advanced AI models" to be used in both the public and private sectors and sharing information around the security risks of AI. OpenAI is also supposed to help DSIT identify ways it can deliver on the infrastructure goals of the AI Action Plan, and possibly explore building in one of the UK's new data center-friendly "AI Growth Zones." All of this sounds nebulous and non-committal because the memorandum OpenAI signed is not at all legally-binding. The partnership sounds nice for elected officials eager to prove the UK is competing in AI, but it doesn't tie anyone down, including the UK government: If Anthropic offers a deal on Claude, they can take it. OpenAI already has offices in London, so deepening its investment doesn't seem out of the question. Signing the memorandum is also consistent with OpenAI's growing interest in working with governments desperate for the high-tech gloss of the AI industry. The logic follows that if OpenAI can get regulators dependent on its tools — say, a ChatGPT Gov specifically designed for government agencies — they'll be more inclined to favor the company in policy decisions. Or at the very least, making a show of collaborating early could win the company a sweeter deal down the road.
Spectator
16-07-2025
- Business
- Spectator
Do we really need state-funded restaurants?
Two British cities, Dundee and Nottingham, have been chosen as trial sites for a new government scheme to be piloted next year: state-subsidised restaurants. The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology has put up £1.5 million for the 12-month trial, initiated by the campaign group Nourish Scotland. If the restaurants are successful, they'll be rolled out across Britain – nourishing us all – with a subsidised meal for £3. Inspired by second world war state-funded canteens, they're going to be called 'Public Diners' – clever branding, with its quasi-American vibe. Their branding matters because – as anyone who ever ate greasy slop from a tray at a state-run stolovaya in Soviet Russia remembers – no-frills, state-funded restaurants are intrinsically drained of glamour. Today's fastidious British public will require a touch of coolness to entice them in. Winston Churchill also understood that branding mattered. When those state-funded canteens got going in 1940, he decreed that their name, 'communal feeding centres', was 'an odious expression, redolent of communism and the workhouse'. At one stroke, he transformed their image by branding them 'British Restaurants'. 'Everyone,' he said, 'associates the word 'restaurant' with a good meal.' The slogan for the new Public Diners on Nourish Scotland's website is 'an idea whose time has come'. 'They are a holistic food system intervention: for public health, climate and the right to food.' (So we're going to be preached at in noun-lumps, as well as fed.) If all goes to plan, we'll soon see these new, climate-friendly, taxpayer-subsidised diners, inspired also by Turkish public restaurants, Mexican public dining rooms and Polish milk bars. Are those countries really now our economic role models? It doesn't give one much confidence in how things are going. Hospitality entrepreneurs and executives are neither pleased nor impressed. These diners are 'a ludicrous idea,' says Hugh Osmond, co-founder of Pizza Express. Luke Johnson, chairman of Gail's, says the idea that state-backed restaurants could operate more efficiently than the private sector is 'beyond a joke'. You can see why they're worried. Life is tough enough for restaurant owners – hit with ballooning, government-enforced overheads – without this new undercutting from state-funded establishments. But you could argue that commercial restaurants have only themselves to blame. Their prices have rocketed far more steeply than people's pay. In the last ten years, the cost of a Pizza Express 'Margherita' pizza has gone up from £7.55 to £14.95. If the British salary had kept pace with the increasing price of a Margherita, it would have risen from £27,600 to £53,000 – whereas in fact it's £37,500. There may well be a need for 'somewhere where all of us can eat without stretching the budget'. 'What could possibly go wrong?' hospitality executives are wondering as they wait for the pilot branches of the diners to open. A contract to run them is expected to be tendered later this year. Though the restaurants themselves will be not-for-profit, the caterers who run them will be expecting to make money – as will the providers of the fittings and the produce. Governments don't have the best reputation when it comes to not being ripped off during the procurement process. The issue of precisely what food to serve is also going to be a minefield. Nourish Scotland's consultation exercise 'showed that there are plenty of challenges ahead when it comes to deciding on what food should be served in a Public Diner'. We're no longer the unfussy wartime population who gratefully scoffed a plateful of boiled cabbage and mashed potato. The food served in those wartime British Restaurants had three chief attributes: it was soft (designed for a nation with a high proportion of false teeth), bland (designed to avoid tummy upsets) and filling (designed to fatten up a thin population). Today's populace won't be so willing to eat up whatever's put in front of them. They'll expect their individual health- and religion-based dietary requirements to be respected. An added complication is that, far from aiming to fatten up the population, this new scheme aims to tackle obesity. The scheme also requires the food to be locally sourced, to fulfil the climate aspect of its brief. As Jeremy Clarkson showed us in the latest series of Clarkson's Farm, locally sourced food is expensive. How will that work, economically, for the taxpayer? It'll be fun seeing what dishes the various branches do decide to serve – and whether the scheme sparks a revival of distinctly British regional food. I hope the Dundee branch offers the local dish Cullen skink (smoked haddock and potato soup with milk), and the Nottingham one Sherwood Forest venison and stilton. Are Public Diners really 'an idea whose time has come', or are they in fact an idea whose time is long gone? The scheme's brochure celebrates, with some nostalgia, those morale-boosting wartime British Restaurants which brought everyone together. There was indeed a great charm about them. Kenneth Clark's wife Elizabeth arranged to borrow paintings from Buckingham Palace to hang on their walls, to cheer everyone up. Today's utopian ideal is that strangers will meet and make friends over their plates of spicy chickpea and potato tagine – and that this will be a new way of falling in love IRL rather than online. But British Restaurants had their moment – and that moment has gone. The government withdrew financial responsibility for them in 1949, and they dwindled away after rationing ended in the mid-1950s. The free market took over, and competitive hospitality businesses survived – or closed down – accordingly. Is this scheme really the best way to spend taxpayers' money? Essentially, those who don't go to the restaurants will be subsidising those who do. Surely our taxes would be better spent teaching schoolchildren how to fry an onion and make a cheap pasta sauce at home. This government is so much better at thinking of new ways of spending our money than of saving it.
The Herald Scotland
01-07-2025
- Health
- The Herald Scotland
Universities did not protect gender-critical academics from harassment
The report – on barriers to research on sex and gender identity – has called for staff and students who take part in freedom-restricting harassment to face 'consequences commensurate with the seriousness of the offence'. Universities should critically review their policies and practices to remove 'partisan policies and messaging on questions of sex and gender', it added. The report follows a review of data, statistics and research on sex and gender, which was commissioned by the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology under the former Conservative government in February 2024. It came after high-profile cases of academics who faced harassment relating to their gender-critical views garnered media attention in recent years. In March, the Office for Students (OfS) issued a fine of £585,000 to the University of Sussex for failing to uphold freedom of speech. The watchdog's investigation into the university was launched after protests called for the dismissal of academic Professor Kathleen Stock in 2021 over her views on gender identity. The OfS concluded the university's trans and non-binary equality policy statement had 'a chilling effect' of possible self-censorship of students and staff on campus. In January last year, an academic won an unfair dismissal claim against the Open University (OU) after she was discriminated against and harassed because of her gender-critical beliefs. An employment tribunal found Professor Jo Phoenix – who was compared with 'a racist uncle at the Christmas table' – was forced to quit her job because of a 'hostile environment' created by colleagues and 'insufficient protection' from the university. Prof Sullivan's latest report cites evidence from a number of academics – including Prof Stock and Prof Phoenix – who have challenged the theory that sex is always less important than gender identity. Protests called for the dismissal of Professor Kathleen Stock in 2021 over her views on gender identity (Oxford Union Society/PA) It said: 'Several respondents to this review have suffered extreme personal consequences, both to their careers and to their physical and mental health, including post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and extensive sick leave as a result of bullying, harassment and discrimination. 'The failure to adequately support and defend these individuals is a stain on the higher education sector.' The review concluded: 'Campaigns of harassment have had devastating consequences for individuals and created a wider chilling effect for academia and the research community. 'University policies have often adhered to the tenets of gender-identity theory, thus embedding discriminatory practices. 'In cases where individual academics or students have tried to resolve issues using internal mechanisms, these processes have often proven inadequate. 'Going to an employment tribunal is an exceptionally onerous and potentially career-ending step. 'Statements from higher education management representatives and bodies have typically downplayed and denied problems with academic freedom, dismissing or minimising concerns as 'media noise' or 'culture wars'.' Report author Prof Sullivan, from the UCL Social Research Institute, said: 'The evidence I have collected raises stark concerns about barriers to academic freedom in UK universities. 'Researchers investigating vital issues have been subjected to sustained campaigns of intimidation simply for acknowledging the biological and social importance of sex. 'Excessive and cumbersome bureaucratic processes have exacerbated the problem by providing levers for activists to exert influence. 'Academic institutions need to examine their policies and processes carefully to avoid these unintended outcomes.' Among a series of recommendations, the report said senior leaders in higher education should acknowledge the reality of bullying and harassment by internal activists and 'take on board the lessons of the Phoenix judgment'. Prof Phoenix, who resigned from the OU in December 2021 after she was harassed for her gender-critical views, said: 'I just suggested that there was a different evidence base from which we could make assessments about the potential harms of placing males who identify as trans in female prisons and I set up a research network. That was all I ever did. 'But it was enough for the activist academics to stop my criminological research career in its track and to do so permanently.' A Government spokeswoman said: 'We are taking strong action to protect academic freedom and free speech, which are fundamental to our world-leading universities. 'This includes introducing new duties on universities to ensure they are robust in promoting and protecting free speech on campus. 'It also comes alongside the firm steps the Office for Students is already taking, through fines and new guidance, to ensure universities remain beacons of academic freedom.' A Universities UK (UUK) spokeswoman said: 'We agree that universities must protect and defend academic freedom and freedom of speech. 'They are bound to do so by law and, in England, there is a new regulatory approach under the Freedom of Speech Act which is about to come into force. 'These are complex issues. In practice universities are bound by law to protect the free speech of individuals who have very different views on contentious topics. 'They are required both to allow and facilitate protest, and to prevent that protest creating an intimidatory or chilling environment on campus or from preventing staff and students from pursuing their work and studies. 'We will carefully consider this report as part of our work in supporting universities as they navigate these difficult issues.'
Daily Record
01-07-2025
- Politics
- Daily Record
Livingston MP raises concerns in the Commons about threat of AI-generated child sexual abuse material
Gregor Poynton described it as 'one of the biggest threats to our public safety.' Livingston's MP has raised concerns about the 'growing prevalence' of AI-generated child sexual abuse material. Gregor Poynton was speaking in the House of Commons during questions to the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, when he described it as 'one of the biggest threats to our public safety.' The West Lothian MP cited warnings from law enforcement bodies, stressing the need for urgent and coordinated action, and criticised recent opposition from the Tories and Reform to new legislation designed to tackle the issue. 'The National Crime Agency and other law enforcement agencies have highlighted the growing prevalence of AI-generated child sexual abuse material as one of the biggest threats to our public safety,' he said. 'And it's a growing threat to all of us online. 'That's why I was astonished to see the Conservatives and Reform Party vote against the Policing and Crime Bill last week, which contains world-leading measures to criminalise the creation and distribution of AI-generated child sexual abuse material. We simply cannot allow child safety to become a political football.' Responding on behalf of the UK Government, Minister for Tech and the Digital Economy, Feryal Clark MP, confirmed that the Bill introduces a new criminal offence targeting AI models optimised to produce child abuse imagery. She reiterated the government's commitment to adapting the law to keep pace with emerging digital harms. 'Child sexual exploitation and abuse is one of the most horrendous harms,' the Minister said. 'This new offence builds on protections in the Online Safety Act and I'm very clear that nothing is off the table when it comes to keeping our children safe.' Gregor Poynton, chairs the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Children's Online Safety, and has consistently advocated for tougher regulation of harmful online content and greater transparency from tech companies. He welcomed the new offence as 'a necessary step', but expressed concern about the political divisions that have emerged around the issue. He added: 'Last week, Parliament had the opportunity to come together behind one of the toughest crackdowns yet on AI-generated child abuse material. It's disappointing that the Conservatives and Reform chose to oppose it. On an issue as serious as child safety, families across the UK expect politicians to do the right thing — to keep our children and young people safe online, not to turn this into a political football.'
