UK Politics

4200 readers

348 users here now

General Discussion for politics in the UK.
Please don't post to both !uk_politics@feddit.uk and !unitedkingdom@feddit.uk .
Pick the most appropriate, and put it there.

Posts should be related to UK-centric politics, and should be either a link to a reputable news source for news, or a text post on this community.

Opinion pieces are also allowed, provided they are not misleading/misrepresented/drivel, and have proper sources.

If you think "reputable news source" needs some definition, by all means start a meta thread. (These things should be publicly discussed)

Posts should be manually submitted, not by bot. Link titles should not be editorialised.

Disappointing comments will generally be left to fester in ratio, outright horrible comments will be removed.
Message the mods if you feel something really should be removed, or if a user seems to have a pattern of awful comments.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

tom@feddit.uk

GreatAlbatross@feddit.uk

flamingos@feddit.uk

frankPodmore@slrpnk.net

Deal to get ChatGPT Plus for whole of UK discussed by Open AI boss and minister (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 4 days ago by geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

15 comments fedilink hide all child comments

The boss of the firm behind ChatGPT and the UK technology secretary discussed a multibillion-pound deal to give the entire country premium access to the AI tool, the Guardian has learned.

Sam Altman, a co-founder of OpenAI, talked to Peter Kyle about a potential agreement to give UK residents access to its advanced product.

According to two sources with direct knowledge of the meeting, the idea was floated as part of a broader discussion in San Francisco about opportunities for collaboration between OpenAI and the UK.

Those close to the discussion say Kyle never really took the idea seriously, not least because it could have cost as much as £2bn. But the talks show the enthusiasm with which the technology secretary has embraced the artificial intelligence sector, despite concerns over the accuracy of some chatbot responses and implications for privacy and copyright.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] Noit@feddit.uk 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

I’m not pro this for reasons others have pointed out, but there is a ray of sunshine alongside the clouds of “just give loads of taxpayer money to a foreign company and hope it improves matters”.

If humanity is on a path to true artificial evidence, one of the worst case scenarios is that we end up with a few AI-haves (read: billionaires) and then the rest of humanity end up as the have-nots fighting over the scraps left over. What we have here is a government aspiring to ensure we all have equal access to the AI future. This is a hugely important thing that should not be downplayed even if the current approach is ham-handed at best. This is a baby that should not be thrown out with the bath water.

[–] echodot@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Big if there. They were prepared to just hand over 2 billion pounds to a foreign company in the hope that that company eventually comes up with a product that's actually worth 2 billion pounds. Perhaps a better bet would be to wait and see if they do.

I agree with you in general that it would be very bad for the public not to have access to a true AGI but I sort of feel like in that scenario all bets are off. Would it even make sense to honour prior agreements, does a agreement made under one economic system make sense under a different economic system?

Also wouldn't the best bet me to simply develop our own AI rather than relying on an American company?

[–] Noit@feddit.uk 1 points 1 day ago

You’re making two competing arguments. One is that AI is going nowhere and the government shouldn’t invest. And another that we are going to the AGI future and we should build it here. If you think 2 billion to OpenAI is expensive then you’ll be shocked by how much it would cost to get enough AI talent to move to the UK and build us something that competes with the top US and Chinese models.

The government is going to have to make a gamble one way or another and it either costs us a lot of money or risks a huge opportunity. There aren’t any winning options that make everyone happy.