As is increasingly the case, our cousins across the pond managed to grab the headlines this week. Specifically Vice President JD Vance, who told world leaders at this week’s AI summit in Paris that the “AI future is not going to be won by hand-wringing about safety.”
To some people’s surprise, the US refused to sign the international AI declaration. To most people’s surprise, so too did the UK – choosing instead to side with the US over 60 other countries. The UK Government stated: “We felt the declaration didn’t provide enough practical clarity on global governance, nor sufficiently address harder questions around national security and the challenge AI poses to it.”
While some will attempt frame this as a sign that the UK and US don’t care about safety and regulation, it would be more accurate to see this as a move to clarify priorities. That’s why the UK’s AI Safety Institute has just rebranded as the AI Security Institute. As Ian Hogarth, Chair of the AISI, wrote on X: “It’s time to properly reflect that we see the most serious risks as being those to security.”
Our Substack readers might have seen this coming. In our most recent interview, Herbie Bradley, former member of the technical staff at the AISI, said on the AISI’s future: “It would be quite wise to focus more on AI security – specifically, securing training and deployment data centres against cyberattacks and working closely with the US through mechanisms like Five Eyes. AI security will become much more critical in the years to come, as I expect many capable cyber actors to want to attack highly capable AI systems.”
Maybe this puts us at odds with the EU, but until they upgrade their compass the choice is simple. While it might sound a little overblown, this is really all about the ‘free world’ prevailing. Of course, for this to make sense we must hope that Sam Freedman is wrong in predicting that the US might no longer be part of the free world (paywall) – though we’re less pessimistic.
The prize of getting this right is huge, and is underlined by today’s announcement that the government has signed a memorandum of understanding with Anthropic on AI opportunities. This points towards a future where AI will revolutionise the way that governments serve their citizens. Watch this space for more.
Makers Not Takers
Welcoming the launch of the AI Opportunities Action Plan last month, we noted that the true test will be in its execution. Part of the responsibility is on the AI sector itself.
To help drive engagement from the AI community, we’ve joined Phoenix Court, Faculty, Founders at the University of Cambridge, and other ecosystem players as a partner on the AI Forum.
The first meeting of the AI Forum brought together 68 leaders from across the ecosystem – researchers, startup founders, policy experts, civil society, and government officials. Attendees broke into six groups to focus on the key pillars of the plan: Infrastructure, Data, Talent & Skills, Governance, Go-To-Market, and how to ensure the UK is a nation of AI “makers.”
The next meetings of the AI Forum will take place on 30 April, 1 July, and 19 November. Whether you’re working on infrastructure, talent development, building AI models, or thinking about governance, now’s your chance to get involved.
The Action Plan sets an ambitious vision for UK leadership. You can help shape the next phase of the UK’s AI journey through a community survey.
What’s Up?
We’ve just launched our WhatsApp community. With a network of well over 10,000 entrepreneurs and even more people supporting them, this is a bit of a leap into the unknown.
You’ll see that there are a few groups already active there which are ongoing projects. Please feel free to request to join them, although there will be a more formal process for accepting people for privacy reasons. Do also feel free to suggest new groups. It’s going to be a process of trial and error (hopefully not too many of the latter).
As well as sharing updates, we’re going to use the groups to source ideas for those at the coalface. Managing a community requires a lot of work, so we’re weighing up the value of partnering with organisations, companies and individuals who can help us run specific groups.
In summary: join our community today and drop me an email if you want to help us run a group.
Please note that if you join the community, only The Entrepreneurs Network will be able to view your phone number, but if you are accepted to a specific group, your number will be visible to the other members of that group.