UK Government Shelves $1.66 Billion Tech and AI Plans 35
An anonymous reader shares a report: The new Labour government has shelved $1.66 bn of funding promised by the Conservatives for tech and Artificial Intelligence (AI) projects, the BBC has learned. It includes $1 bn for the creation of an exascale supercomputer at Edinburgh University and a further $640m for AI Research Resource, which funds computing power for AI. Both funds were unveiled less than 12 months ago.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the money was promised by the previous administration but was never allocated in its budget. Some in the industry have criticised the government's decision. Tech business founder Barney Hussey-Yeo posted on X that reducing investment risked "pushing more entrepreneurs to the US." Businessman Chris van der Kuyl described the move as "idiotic." Trade body techUK said the government now needed to make "new proposals quickly" or the UK risked "losing out" to other countries in what are crucial industries of the future.
The Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT) said the money was promised by the previous administration but was never allocated in its budget. Some in the industry have criticised the government's decision. Tech business founder Barney Hussey-Yeo posted on X that reducing investment risked "pushing more entrepreneurs to the US." Businessman Chris van der Kuyl described the move as "idiotic." Trade body techUK said the government now needed to make "new proposals quickly" or the UK risked "losing out" to other countries in what are crucial industries of the future.
Smart decision (Score:5, Informative)
AI does not and continues to not deliver what its proponents promise. Vast improvements are not to be expected, because this is actually pretty old tech, just scaled up. Hallucinations cannot be fixed. Model collapse is becoming a real threat. "Better crap" and somewhat better search are not enough to justify the effort invested.
Re:Smart decision (Score:5, Funny)
Government funding is a bad sign (Score:2)
If it is so useful, why does it need government's funding? Whoever benefits from it, ought to pay.
Yes, this Libertarian would ask the same question about most other governmental expenditures...
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A nice example of the utter stupidity AI promotes. I guess you need AI help to tie your shoelaces. Well, here is news for you: Most people can do it by themselves and it is even faster.
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Hehehehehe....
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Re:Smart decision (Score:4, Insightful)
AI does not and continues to not deliver what its proponents promise. Vast improvements are not to be expected, because this is actually pretty old tech, just scaled up. Hallucinations cannot be fixed. Model collapse is becoming a real threat. "Better crap" and somewhat better search are not enough to justify the effort invested.
AI over the past 10 years has already revolutionized some use cases, such as natural language processing, object recognition, foreign language translation, etc. Because the processing for these use cases is in the back end, AI often doesn't get layman credit, but that progress is unmistakable and is the primary motivation for the recent work of the past few years. LLMs are the new shiny thing. It's true that LLMs in the use case format as a general information expert is still nascent and unproven. However, it's a mistake to view this narrow use case for LLMs as the sole manifestation of AI, and it's simplistic to assume that nascent technology will never progress and pan out.
It's somewhat true that the progress over the last 10 years has been partially due to scaling up. Going deep has been completely revolutionary, but more importantly, going deep has allowed other groundbreaking technologies to be relevant, such as the breathtaking pace of new models.
At the time that Google and Nvidia were pushing AI 10 years ago, there were similar criticisms of AI, particularly due to layman articles that focused on partial, strawman views of AI. Those critics have been proven wrong. That's not to say that the current AI directions will pan out, but the past successes stand on their own and are proven history. The reason hyperscalers (and others -- hyperscalers represent less than 50% of Nvidia's data center sales) continue to increase their GPU purchases is that they cannot afford to be wrong. Google will dramatically shrink if Microsoft can find an AI-based way to replace Google Search. There is R&D in many different directions and for different use cases. I doubt all of them will pan out, but it would be shocking if none of them eventually pan out.
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First, when I write "AI" at this time, I mean LLMs. I am well aware of other approaches and what they do, and the somewhat limited successes they have. Specifically on the case of NLP, I am less than impressed. For example, having fixed some automatic translations myself, I estimate a 30-50% time saving effect at best, but only if you have a subject matter expert do the fixing. Otherwise you will have gross errors in there and that will eat all time savings and put more cost on top. Sure, the language sound
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ClippyAI, a dynamic interactive natural language processing interface using the contents of the WEB as source.
Surprise Budget Hole (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Surprise Budget Hole (Score:5, Insightful)
No, they *knew* the money wasn't there, but promised it anyway. It was *nothing* but words, in the lead up to an election in which they were going to get creamed.
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I'm sure Labour did know, but the only way Labour thinks it can get elected is by adopting Tory spending plans. That requires them to believe the Tory lies about the economic situation, at least until they actually get into power.
The question now is who is going to pay for all this. They have three choices.
1. More austerity, i.e. the 95% pay for it.
2. Raise taxes on everyone.
3. Raise taxes on just big, highly profitable corporations and very high earners, the top 2%.
I have a feeling they will choose (1), an
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Maybe its different in the UK, but Conservatives have always espoused a "smaller, leaner goverment," so its amusing to me that its the liberals that have cut back on spending.. even if that spending was nothing but a big helium filled balloon.
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Our Conservatives only wanted that so that their friends and donors could offer the services which previously people got for free, like healthcare.
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Re: Surprise Budget Hole (Score:1)
If weâ(TM)ve been having such extreme austerity, then why is the tax burden reaching levels last seen in the 1960s? Where is all the money going?
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Re: Surprise Budget Hole (Score:1)
That only works up to a point. The money the government spends is money it has taken from people. If 100% of employment is paid for by the government, where does the extra money come from considering its taxes will only claw back a third of its spending? You clearly need to have the right ratio of private versus public workers or else it becomes unsustainable. And you havenâ(TM)t explained where all the money is going considering things were working better in the past with a lower tax burden.
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Some years ago the London mayor decided to make all the public museums & galleries free to enter, i.e. anyone & everyone can walk straight in, without paying, no questions asked (there's a lot of them & they're very good). The conservative reaction was, "They're go bankrupt! How will the museums & galleries be paid for! It just means that Londoners wil
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Color me skeptical. What is the evidence that abolishing museum entry charges increased tourism visits?
The point about the recent Labour Government announcements is that they are not likely to lead to any increase in economic activity. They are so far just a plan to raise civil service salaries (which is just union payback) and the Great British Energy plan, destined to be another government money pit with no useful return.
Keynesian deficit spending may work in some circumstances. But when you have very
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Big, popular cities, like London, typically monitor & model traffic flows, public transport use, footfall, & crowding. They have a very good idea of what people are doing & how much they're spending en masse. As predicted, making the museums & galleries in London free to enter had a large impact on London's economy.
But th
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The idea that the last Conservative government was running 'the most extreme austerity' is total nonsense. It was in fact the most recklessly profligate government since at least WWII, and perhaps ever. This is what the numbers show.
It got kicked out mainly because that's what the British do, they elect Conservative governments, keep them in office for several terms, and then decide its time to give the other lot a go. They are then surprised and appalled by the results and go back to the Conservatives.
T
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One of the things that "fiscal conservatives" find confusing is that a country can go in to debt by reducing public spending, AKA austerity.
I am surprised (Score:2)
Conservatives love to spend money (Score:3)
I find it funny that all these conservatives that are always quick to complain about spending when others are in power will spend a lot more than ANYONE else once they are in power themselves.
Re:Conservatives love to spend money (Score:4, Informative)
They do, but they never spend it on anything useful. Few billion here and there to their cronies. And all while cutting taxes and selling off the country to pay for it.
Somehow the Tories spend other people's money like it's going out of fashion while chronically underinvesting. It's a special talent.
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A *few* billion? They spent more than a few billion on useless PPE which is now being burned.
Test & Trace, which had no measurable impact on infection rates, was over £37 billion.
They pissed away more than a few billion on not building HS2 (supposed to be the UK's new high speed railway, now mostly cancelled and largely pointless).
The amount lost due to poor health and lost opportunities that can never be regained is incalculable. Whole lives blighted by it.
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It was a riff on âoeA billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.".
supposed to be the UK's new high speed railway, now mostly cancelled and largely pointless
there's still a giant hole in Euston, which they've left to labour to clean up after then "cancelled" it.
This is why Labour (Score:1)
It is the unions, stupid! (Score:1)
This is not about AI, like the other expense reduction announcements it has only one purpose: to fund giveaways to the unions, who in turn fund the Labour Party.
This is the fundamental dynamic of UK politics. One party is the political arm of the trade unions - especially the state sector unions. Every few years the country gets sick of the other party and puts in Labour, who then, to general astonishment, do what they always have done, tax, borrow - and spend as much as they can get away with on their u