Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning , Government , Industry Specific

British Prime Minister Starmer Unveils New AI Plan

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer unveiled a plan for converting the United Kingdom into an artificial intelligence "world leader," allowing it to shape the next phase of the "AI revolution."

On Monday, Starmer endorsed a 50-point AI Opportunities Action Plan put forward by venture capitalist Matt Clifford and commissioned by the Labour government.

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The plan seeks to achieve three main goals within the next six months: scaling up the U.K's AI capabilities through increased investments, pushing cross-sectoral AI adoption and transitioning the U.K. into an "AI maker" than an "AI taker."

"Our plan will make Britain the world leader. It will give the industry the foundation it needs and will turbocharge the Plan for Change. That means more jobs and investment in the UK, more money in people’s pockets, and transformed public services," Starmer said.

Key recommendations include creating multiple AI growth zones that can ramp up the U.K.'s domestic computing capabilities. As part of the proposal, the U.K. government will unveil the first such growth zone in the Culham Science Centre, headquarters of the British Atomic Energy Authority.

The plan also includes creating a national data library and providing a copyright-cleared media training data set consisting of information from the British National Archives, Natural History Museum, British Library, and the BBC.

The plan recommends that all government offices should map out artificial intelligence uses within their organizations, develop a prototype for different capabilities, and identify successful use cases to offer better public services to citizens.

"It's going to combine top talent from inside and outside government to think strategically and creatively on where the U.K. can play and win," Clifford tweeted on Monday, who added the action plan is designed to "reignite growth" and transform public services.

The government's plan, however, sparked mixed reactions from tech and security experts.

While OpenAI and Anthropic applauded the initiative - stating it will place the U.K. in the AI growth trajectory - others were quick to warn about the potential dangers of poorly secured projects such as the national data library and the proposed AI pilot programs.

"Building large datasets that can be shared with researchers is a potential IP and personally identifiable information nightmare," said Martin Riley, CTO of cybersecurity firm Bridewell. Since access to such datasets creates several cybersecurity challenges, Riley added it is important for the government to outline the security first.

"This should be blended with the security of AI, where the MLOps pipelines need to be secured to ensure there is no data leak, particularly sensitive data, vulnerabilities correctly managed, biases and poisoning correctly managed," Riley added.

Gaia Marcus, director of Ada Lovelace Institute, warned piloting AI in public offices could have significant real-world impact, especially in healthcare.

"In light of past backlash against medical data sharing, the government must continue to think carefully about the circumstances under which this kind of sharing will be acceptable to the public. Greater public engagement and deliberation will help in understanding their views," Marcus said.