Labour’s AI minister has accused the former Conservative government of turning public opinion against artificial intelligence by focusing on “doomsday scenarios”.
Speaking to UKTN, Feryal Clark – the DSIT minister responsible for AI and cybersecurity – said that by concentrating on the “scariest stuff” in its communications regarding the technology, Rishi Sunak’s Conservative government took attention away from how it is benefiting the country.
“[The Conservatives] spent far too much time talking about doomsday scenarios. The front pages of most of our newspapers, when they talked about AI, it was always the scariest stuff…not enough about the real life use cases of AI,” Clark said.
The digital minister did give credit to the previous administration for establishing the AI Safety Institute – now rebranded as the AI Security Institute – but said it only highlighted hypothetical outcomes regarding artificial general intelligence.
Clark met with UKTN at the office of Polaron, a London-based startup that has become the first company to win the Manchester Prize, an annual £1m award for research teams and businesses building novel use cases for AI in different themes, with this year’s being solutions for supporting Britain’s net zero transition.
Polaron is an Imperial College London spinout using AI to develop materials used for climate-friendly infrastructure including wind turbines and electric vehicle batteries.
The £1m prize may seem a modest sum, particularly compared to the $500bn Stargate Project in the US and France’s €109bn AI investment pledge – but Clark argued the UK is “massively punching above our weight when it comes to AI investments”.
For Clark, the Manchester Prize is a way to direct funding towards research in specific areas of AI, “but it isn’t the only thing”.
The MP for Enfield North pointed to the billions of pounds worth of private investment secured at last year’s Chancellor’s Investment Summit, as well as the numerous grants for AI research given out by UKRI.
“The reason we’re leading is because of the level of investment…we will continue to make sure that the private sector sees the UK as an area that they can invest in.”
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