A tech read into Reeves's Spring Statement
Frontier AI is one of the standout lines, but as civil service redundancies accelerate so too will AI adoption
Stepping away from headline grabbing stuff on welfare reform and growth forecasts, there was a couple interesting points on the technology side in today’s Spring Statement. Frontier AI in particular caught my eye.
[Frontier AI is the most cutting-edge models that can carry out a wide range of complex tasks, such as holding fluent conversations, writing functional code, generating realistic news articles, and translating languages. This government discussion paper from 2023 provides more details on the risks and opportunities with Frontier AI.]
Today Rachel Reeves announced she is providing £42 million for three DSIT-led Frontier AI Exemplars. These Exemplars will “test and deploy AI applications to make government operations more efficient and effective, and improve outcomes for citizens by reducing unnecessary bureaucracy”.
As the government well knows, a great deal of care needs to be taken around this. Not least in light of the findings from the The Alan Turing Institute’s 'AI Attitudes' survey, but the Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) has also warned that:
“Integrating AI into public policy and decision-making processes risks exacerbating existing inequalities and unfairness, potentially leading to new, uncontrollable forms of discrimination at unprecedented speed and scale. The environmental impacts, both direct and indirect, could be catastrophic, while the rise of AI-powered personalised misinformation and behavioural manipulation is contributing to increasingly polarised societies.”
If that's not jabbing a finger into the chest of government, I'm not sure what is.
The ambition in today's statement should be matched with caution. But I suspect the upfront costs Reeves is going to have to wear on civil service redundancy packages (£150m) will grease the rails towards AI automation more quickly than we might otherwise like.
In her speech, Reeves said she going to be 'backing the builders, not the blockers… ' I do feel sorry for Ed Miliband. He once had a £28bn green investment plan. Now his green belts are getting greyer, and something approaching unfettered development is on the horizon.
And on Northern Ireland's piece of the pie, our expenditure limits open up by an extra half a billion over the next 12 months, rising from £15.7bn this year to £16.2bn in 2026.