Ministers have called in Tony Blair\u2019s thinktank and private tech companies to guide them on deploying AI across the UK government in a move campaigners compared to \u201cinviting in foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse\u201d.<\/p>\n
James Murray, chief secretary to the Treasury, chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chair of IBM and senior executives at AI companies including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dex Hunter-Torricke, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk\u2019s SpaceX.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese people are exactly who can help us create change across the public sector \u2013 giving us the hard truths on our approach to AI and advising where we need to prioritise our investment to support real efficiencies,\u201d said Murray, who added that their advice will \u201cfeed into efficiency processes ahead of the next spending review\u201d.<\/p>\n
The move came after the technology secretary, Liz Kendall, last month said the government\u2019s goal was to \u201cmake Britain the fastest AI adoption country in the G7\u201d.<\/p>\n
The Treasury said it showed it was committing \u201cto private sector engagement on the deployment of artificial intelligence across the public sector so it can improve efficiency and productivity\u201d.<\/p>\n
But Foxglove<\/a>, the tech equity campaign group, said the Treasury meeting was \u201cyet more evidence of the government\u2019s excessively cosy relationship with Big Tech\u201d.<\/p>\n \u201cGiving tech giants privileged access to decision-making around buying the very products they supply is clearly a risk,\u201d said Donald Campbell, director of advocacy.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s hard to understand how ministers seem to be unable to spot a potential conflict of interest which is blindingly obvious to everyone else.\u201d<\/p>\n Ministers were expected to hear criticism of the way the government has procured AI and related technology, the absence of the highest calibre talent in Whitehall to steer the implementation of AI and its failure to turn pilots into large-scale projects.<\/p>\n The government has signed memorandums of understanding with AI firms OpenAI, Anthropic and GoogleDeepMind, accepted $1m (\u00a3730,000) from Meta to fund experts to \u201cdevelop cutting-edge AI solutions \u2026 support national security and defence teams\u201d and has contracts in health, defence and policing with Palantir<\/a>.<\/p>\n