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AI United Kingdom Technology

UK Publishes 10-Year Plan To Become 'AI Superpower,' Seeking To Rival US and China (cnbc.com) 108

New submitter iarlakd writes: The U.K. government on Wednesday released its 10-year plan to make the country a global "artificial intelligence superpower," seeking to rival the likes of the U.S. and China. The so-called "National Artificial Intelligence Strategy" is designed to boost the use of AI among the nation's businesses, attract international investment into British AI companies and develop the next generation of homegrown tech talent. "Today we're laying the foundations for the next ten years' growth with a strategy to help us seize the potential of artificial intelligence and play a leading role in shaping the way the world governs it," Chris Philp, a minister of the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, said in a statement. The National AI Strategy includes a number of programs, reports and initiatives. Among them, a new National AI Research and Innovation program will be launched as part of an effort to improve coordination and collaboration between the country's researchers. Elsewhere, another program will specifically aim to support AI development outside London and Southeast England, where much of the nation's AI efforts are currently concentrated.
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UK Publishes 10-Year Plan To Become 'AI Superpower,' Seeking To Rival US and China

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  • The rhetoric is ignorant ("AI Superpower" is kind of a meaningless concept), but the more funding gets put towards basic research, the better.
    We all win.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 )

      or they imagine throwing money at a fictional concept will make it a reality, and it turns out to be a waste.

      Really nothing new in AI since the 1960s, all been done before, but we have faster hardware now.

      • Re:Cool (Score:4, Insightful)

        by phantomfive ( 622387 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:12PM (#61821813) Journal

        Really nothing new in AI since the 1960s, all been done before, but we have faster hardware now.

        Well, since the 1960s there's been some improvement in theory for sure.
        Since the late 1980s the improvements have either been refinements, faster hardware, or finding out things that don't work.

        • Software is progressing nicely, but I think the next major step will be along the lines of neuromorphic computing and the use of memristors in neuromorphic devices.

          • No, algorithmically anything that can be done in hardware can also be done in software. New hardware will make it faster but that is all.
            That is a fundamental theorem of computer science.

      • You are clearly moving the goalposts since many intended uses of 'Artificial Intelligence' from the 50's are already commercial products

        • The useful products are doing nested case statements essentially. Remaining ones are marketing hype and hooey, except for ones achieving things such as running over and killing bag ladies and becoming racist chat bots.

          What a farce, mostly smoke and mirrors.

          • Here is a list of recent developments from wikipedia [wikipedia.org]

            These include processing of visual images, driving, playing human games, etc... and largely go well beyond case statements

            Date Development
            2010 Microsoft launched Kinect for Xbox 360, the first gaming device to track human body movement, using just a 3D camera and infra-red detection, enabling users to play their Xbox 360 wirelessly. The award-winning machine learning for human motion capture technology for this device was developed by the Computer Vi

            • You only prove my point and that you are ignorant of the subject. Some of that isn't even claimed to be AI at all, the rest is just old 60s algorithms on fast hardware. And yes half of that is nested case statement crap.

      • or they imagine throwing money at a fictional concept will make it a reality, and it turns out to be a waste.

        This is more or less exactly what Japan did in the 1980s [wikipedia.org] which may in a sense be part of the way they lost their technological lead or at least confidence in their lead.

    • If AI researchers, like psychologists, put money into BASIC research instead of chasing headlines researching exciting-sounding but unscientific nonsense, they might get somewhere.
      • AI researchers have plenty of models, what they need are newer computing models to run on, just the inclusion of petaflops of processing power have allowed Tesla to make advancements in self driving, and pushing forward with memristor designs would allow better modeling of neuron behavior

        These are all incremental advancements

    • That depends upon who the AI work for.

      If you are not someone who supports or develops AI -- then you might be losing your job to AI. While sure, in the PAST, new technology might have provided new opportunities -- I don't know how the people who run the register or drive the trucks are going to find a way to be useful in this brave new world of AI. Even "dumb AI" will be able to do the "shovel" jobs. They will clean the houses. They will assist with caring for the elderly. They will COMPETE for the cost of

      • ok I'm going to make AI that replaces jobs. I also make non-AI computer software that replaces jobs. So if you're looking for something to scare me, you need something else.

        • I for one welcome our AI kindergarten teachers

          • I predict they are first going to be in huggable Teddy Bears.

            Then you'll have kids whose favorite teacher or friend was an AI.

            It's gonna get weird.

        • I know you are probably saying this tongue-in-cheek, but this kind of attitude should scare you the most.

          What provisions are being made for those who can't keep up or find gainful employment as the AI and software replaces workers?

          Eventually, AI will be writing code and improving AI and you will be out of a job because unless we have "hybrid" computing in our brains, we cannot evolve our intelligence to keep up with AI.

          Unless there is empathy, then AI will destroy us all -- including those that temporarily

          • What provisions are being made for those who can't keep up or find gainful employment as the AI and software replaces workers?

            None, but are you sure it is needed in advance?

            ...this should scare AI as well

            It turns out that machines don't have emotions.

          • I know you are probably saying this tongue-in-cheek

            It is absolutely not. I make the software that replaces workers. Deal with it.

          • What provisions are being made for those who can't keep up or find gainful employment as the AI and software replaces workers?

            Similar things were being said back in the 1800's during the first industrial revolution (and God saving only steam!)....

            Seriously, this sort of thing has been part of reality since the invention of the spear...

    • The rhetoric is ignorant ("AI Superpower" is kind of a meaningless concept), but the more funding gets put towards basic research, the better.
      We all win.

      There is nothing "basic" about AI research.

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      This is a commercial engineering effort.

    • "AI Superpower" is a meaningless concept? Your comment wins as most ignorant comment. The basic research is good for all -- but most of the benefits are going to get privatized just like our University research and drug patents.

      The tech and gains will NOT be shared. While sure, we "win" with new discoveries and patents -- it's only another thing we buy or controls us, while that wealth and control will be concentrated even more than now.

    • Re:Cool (Score:5, Informative)

      by youngone ( 975102 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @04:28PM (#61822221)
      The UK is run by a bunch of public school idiots who only have rhetoric because they have no real clue about anything.
      • by mjwx ( 966435 )

        The UK is run by a bunch of public school idiots who only have rhetoric because they have no real clue about anything.

        Exactly, we've clearly mastered natural stupidity, why not start on artificial intelligence.

        For those unfamiliar with the UK education system public school == private school. What you'd call a public school is known as a state school. Public (private) schools are little more than Old Boys Club incubators.

  • by pele ( 151312 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:03PM (#61821773) Homepage

    Now, on a more serious note, how's the NHS it system coming along? Patient records all working fine? Terminology being used regularly, is it? Icd10 allover, right?

    Boris, getto a grippo, pleaso.

  • good luck (Score:5, Insightful)

    by OrangeTide ( 124937 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:07PM (#61821791) Homepage Journal

    The only way is to open up immigration and brain drain the best and brightest of the world. Giving the xenophobic attitude that brought about Brexit, it is unlikely the British citizenry are ready to do what it takes to become a world leader in any technology.
    The only real competition to the UK is the US. The closed society of China puts an upper limit on scientific inquiry, financial benefit, and the ineffable qualities that attract creative individuals. Ultimately China's talent pool is limited to China, while the West's is all of the world including China itself.
    Cheaper health care doesn't really offer the UK and advantage over the US when tech companies already pay for healthcare, and offer higher salaries, and lower taxes. The wealth gap of the US is a blight overall, but easy to ignore when you're in the top third of wage earners.

    • Re:good luck (Score:5, Informative)

      by TechyImmigrant ( 175943 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:20PM (#61821831) Homepage Journal

      I'm British and drained my brain to the US 21 years ago.

      I saw several of these initiatives get announced for the current tech fashion. My chip making employer got brought by the French. The chip design consultancy I worked for got brought by the Americans and ultimately led to my moving to the US. ARM was a UK thing but the business conditions in the UK did not exist for them to remain independent and start buying their own empire. The reverse happened and they've been shopped around since.

      Easy immigration, strong and equitable trade deals, membership in the EU (but they stuffed that up), well funded and reasonably priced universities. These are among the things that allow a tech industry to thrive.

    • I wish I could upvote this insightful comment.

      Parts of your comment I already thought to be true. But one detail you added made me realize that our lack of healthcare and concentration of wealth isn't as big an issue as I previously thought in regards to getting the "best and brightest." Yes -- of course, people who are at the top of their field don't need to WORRY about the issues that most people deal with. They will get the best healthcare because they are in demand by corporations. It's going to be grea

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The UK has significantly lower salaries than the EU. Very likely one of the reasons brexit was pushed so hard is to prevent UK talent leaving for a much better life in the EU, as many (including myself) did under freedom of movement.

      The UK periodically has these initiatives to build up some area of science or technology, but they never go anywhere. They are basically ways to funnel tax money to friends of the Tory Party, who then tell voters about the millions of pounds being "invested" in their area.

    • Invest in the education of their own people? So one of the problems I have with opening up immigration wide is that it makes it very tempting to slash funding to schools because you don't need to spend money educating your own people if another country is going to do it for you. That's what happened here in America. In the late 90s and early 2000s the H1B program really took off and we got a new unlimited supply of cheap foreign labor and a coincidentally at the same time we slashed federal and state fundin
    • Slightly naive comment there to assume that an employee of a company would put corporate patriotism before country. State-sponsored espionage is a real thing and getting citizens into high-value universities and companies is pretty simple - just look the ethnic backgrounds of your typical tech company. I'm willing to bet that even America indulges in espionage, although it is pretty unlikely that a blue-eyed American would ever get close enough to valuable foreign state secrets!
    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      The only way is to open up immigration

      That happened in 1997. Maybe you haven't noticed the vast tracts of former countryside now covered in shitty housing?

      https://migrationobservatory.o... [ox.ac.uk]

    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Giving the xenophobic attitude that brought about Brexit

      Given the rise in non-EU immigration into the UK since Brexit I'm bewildered that you think it had anything to do xenophobia.

      The UK likes people from other countries. We have one of the most multi-cultural societies on earth, some of the lowest levels of racism and British people travel abroad at a massive rate.

      Xenophobia? In the UK? You've clearly never visited.

  • ....I can attest they have an amazingly solid academic foundation to build this on. Watch out U.S. and China!
    THE BRITS ARE COMING!
    • "....I can attest they have an amazingly solid academic foundation to build this on."

      Foundations that hardly poke out of the ground.
      Other countries call those 'ruins'.

  • 10-year plan to make the country a global "artificial intelligence superpower"?
    Comparisons between US, UK and China?
    A doomed technological race to the bottom? [carnegieendowment.org]

    Sounds like they don't teach history in the UK anymore.
    Or someone might have picked up on the whole "history rhyming" thing.
    Like between this pathetic struggle for relevance employed by those in power to pull the wool over the eyes of the people struggling due to the bonkers thinking of their leaders - and Mao's Great Leap Forward.
    He had similar ideas

    • I would suggest that students of history also consider the English luddite movement as a result of automation of weaving machines

  • by Revek ( 133289 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:28PM (#61821869)
    Putting food on the table for its citizens.
  • We've got such a case of "too much information" combined with a cartoonish zeal for "AI" that I have a feeling (and a hope) that we will continue to enjoy these systems being thwarted by "a clever 8-year-old" well past this decade.

    It's like someone said to these people ONCE "perfect is the enemy of . . . " and they have decided on NEVER getting anything right.
  • Is there anyone here besides a fraction of UK brexiters that takes what says the British government seriously ? We are used to their empty rhetoric. They forge ahead with the bombastic declarations while nothing productive happens. They are not even funny anymore.

    • Is there anyone here besides a fraction of UK brexiters that takes what says the British government seriously ? We are used to their empty rhetoric. They forge ahead with the bombastic declarations while nothing productive happens. They are not even funny anymore.

      The trick is, always on days that these announcements come out look in a t the second page of the Guardian or some of the (non official) opposition web sites. You will almost inevitably find some other thing that would have been a big damaging story for the government if they didn't put out the specific announcement tha they did. This probably isn't even taken seriously by the people that are putting it out.

  • by John Allsup ( 987 ) <slashdot@cha l i s q ue.net> on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:38PM (#61821903) Homepage Journal

    Can't even deliver food on the shelves at the moment. They (current UK govt) are good at making promises, and bad at fulfilling them.

    • Can't even deliver food on the shelves at the moment. They (current UK govt) are good at making promises, and bad at fulfilling them.

      Attention, comrades! We have glorious news for you. We have won the battle for production! Returns now completed of the output of all classes of consumption goods show that the standard of living has risen by no less than 20 per cent over the past year. All over Oceania this morning there were irrepressible spontaneous demonstrations when workers marched out of factories and offices and paraded through the streets with banners voicing their gratitude to Big Brother for the new, happy life which his

    • by Cederic ( 9623 )

      Holy fuck can you propagandists give it a fucking break?

      There are not food shortages in the UK. Nobody is starving and unable to find food.

      Just who are the cunts funding all this nonsense propaganda?

  • by thegarbz ( 1787294 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:38PM (#61821907)

    of economic chaos. Right now there are supply problems for all products and materials. Food is rotting in farms, industry is failing to get materials, store shelves are empty, companies are shutting down under the weight of decimated export income, and their big saving grace of being a "global UK" and making trade deals with the world has resulted in them getting screwed by every country they've attempted to partner with and their two saving graces are a country that this week showed no interest in them (the USA), and a trading block curiously around the Pacific Ocean, which is no where near the UK.

    AI you say? Sure why not. Nothing else has worked.

  • What are the chances that this system is going to partially or totally overlap with the goal of spying on the country's own citizens?

  • by SkonkersBeDonkers ( 6780818 ) on Wednesday September 22, 2021 @02:43PM (#61821923)

    I mean it's not like the UK/British Empire has ever done anything that serves their imperialistic desires and ended up plunging the world into global conflict, right?

    • I mean it's not like the UK/British Empire has ever done anything that serves their imperialistic desires and ended up plunging the world into global conflict, right?

      Don't worry, although we continue to act as if we still had the empire, we actually got rid of it in the '60s and '70s. We currently can really only keep one aircraft carrier at sea and it's British only in name with most of the aircraft pilots being American. Same goes for our Nukes. They are paid for by Britain but we almost couldn't use them independently.

      UK dominance of AI will involve paying Facebook to spy on some bunch of peace protestors whilst ignoring loads of actual terrorists.

  • How the roles have reversed!

    India follows UK in many ways, its government, judiciary, armed forces are all modeled after UK. From sub-registrar's office, to adopting all UK case law as precedents unless superseded by Indian Penal Code and specific rulings overturning precedence, to calling their air force officers air-commodores, wing commanders, air marshals and group captains ... Stars for captains, and crowns/triple-lions for generals on the insignia...

    And India is fond of five year plans modeled afte

  • ... Britain does have all sorts of innovations and inventions to its credit -

    Frank Whittle - the Jet Engine
    Tim Berners-Lee - the World Wide Web
    Sir Isaac Newton - the Reflecting Telescope
    James Dewar - the thermos flask
    Joseph Aspdin - modern cement

    The problem doesn't seem to be their ability to have a good idea. They seem to get unstuck when their innovation isn't supported, isn't developed, sold out from under them, or, worst of all, when their innovators are almost pushed out the country.

    The pro
  • No one takes those things seriously.

    If you want to be a leader you need to lead, not follow.

  • how can I personally get rich off this likely bureaucratic boondoggle.

  • a 10 year plan to get food back into the supermarkets?

  • Looks like humanity is going to screw this up, and this is more dangerous than the Atom Bomb. Even worse; most people developing it don't seem to realize how it can blow up in their faces.

    As a society -- we humans have to get our shit in order. We have to have a notion that NOBODY is left behind. That we all share a common fate. Borders and classes should be relics.

    AI should be for all humanity or not pursued. Because otherwise AI will churn out patents for a corporation. AI will develop the next AI to keep

    • by cowdung ( 702933 )

      A relentless pursuit of technology for technology's sake is not going to be the panacea people think it is.

      Far more needed is a change in the way people relate to and treat each other. If we're not fomenting good behavior between people and actually promoting the opposite with countless media outlets, then technology or no technology we'll destroy eachother.

      The only difference is that the Tech may make it quicker and more efficient.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
  • ...cutting UK science off from all the science funding & collaboration with the EU that it used to benefit from. The UK border & immigration force will probably arrest & deport any AI scientists from the EU that come looking for work. #Brexshit
  • And then immediately sell everything off to SoftBank/Masayoshi Son.

    I have no doubt about their technical abilities. Just their implementation. And thanks for pioneering programmable electronic computing (Colussus) and then dismantling it while we went on to build ENIAC and its commercial descendants.

  • Japan started its big "Fifth Generation" AI initiative in 1982. Heard of it?
  • the last time another country announced exactly the same thing — Japan.

    Was it in the 90s? So any reason why UK could succeed where Japan failed?

  • This is the 21st century, not the 19th. The empire is no more, Britain does not rule the waves, and the best it can aspire to is to consolidate its role as Uncle Sam's lapdog. In the meantime, stick your jingoistic rhetoric up your ass.
  • It's not bad that they want to be better. Artificial intelligence can do a lot for and instead of humans. I am studying forensic medicine essays on thttps://studymoose.com/forensic-science and would really like to receive additional help from a robot or computer. Therefore, I support this development in the country.

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