In today’s issue:
- The UK goes all-in on plans
- Disturbing content
- Tyson vs. Hurricane
Editor’s note: Today, we bring you a guest piece by Sam Volkering from his publication AI Collision which was first published on Tuesday 14 January.
Welcome to AI Collision 💥,
Source: UK Government
Remember the Labour promise from their manifesto leading into the UK general elections?
As a reminder, we covered it and here’s what they said:
We will ensure our industrial strategy supports the development of the Artificial Intelligence (AI) sector, removes planning barriers to new datacentres. And we will create a National Data Library to bring together existing research programmes and help deliver data-driven public services, whilst maintaining strong safeguards and ensuring all of the public benefit.
Well, this new thing is the AI Opportunities Action Plan.
As the government puts it, “It will give the industry the foundation it needs and will turbocharge the Plan for Change.” This, of course, is part of the upcoming Digital and Technology Sector Plan.
So, to get things straight, this is a plan, as part of a plan that will enable plan for change. Incredible amount of planning here…
The National Data Library is in this new plan. There are sexy sounding things like AI Growth Zones and an all-new government department, the AI Energy Council.
But the thing I love most about this detailed plan is their intention to “Build a brand-new supercomputer with enough AI power to play itself at chess half a million times a second.”
And there it is folks. The crux of what AI in the UK is all about. The ability for a supercomputer to play itself in chess.
Honestly, I’m sceptical of all government “plans”. And this government seems very good at making plans and taking little action. In fairness, the Tories before them were equally as good at making plans and taking little action.
If any of them had half an ounce of sense about them, this “plan” would have been well into action already and the UK wouldn’t be lagging the US by such a wide margin.
Although the UK does rank third in the world when it comes to AI development, the gap between us, China and then the US is astounding.
Source: Stanford University AI index
But let’s get serious. This is all fine and dandy, making big plans to make people feel good about an economy that is frankly halfway down the toilet. So much so that “sources close to the Treasury” say about Rachel Reeves that “She’s got choices to make and she knows they’re all sh*t.”
But with a major spending review due in June, what better time than to dump a very ambitious action plan on people to get them excited about the UK economy.
This is political tomfoolery 101.
The good news is, as the chart above indicates, the UK has a fair bit of built-up potential when it comes to AI. You cannot neglect the truth that some of the world’s finest minds, researchers, innovators, universities, research labs and, yes, companies existing in the UK.
There’s two problems though: one, this all comes at a cost, and two, it comes with great energy demand.
Problem one is not that hard to solve. There is already significant investment flowing to the UK for AI, be it research or the development of AI innovation (that likely goes on to list on the US markets…).
The energy problem, however, can’t be solved in an election cycle. That’s why it’s such a big problem now. The reason for sky-high energy isn’t just a Labour problem, it’s not just a Conservatives problem, it’s a problem they’ve all been complicit in.
Try building the world’s most energy-hungry data centres when this is the backdrop of decades-long energy policies…
From the BBC:
From Euronews:
This from The Guardian:
And this from The Telegraph:
This is the biggest handbrake on British innovation in history. It’s not unsolvable thankfully. This new AI action plan specifically mentions energy tech like small modular reactors. It is the AI energy that AI needs to become a driver of growth in the UK.
But none of it happens, unless the energy is fixed. And yes, the answer to that is nuclear, and yes, the answer to that is a government willing to put policy in play that might benefit the opposition. And yes, if they can solve the energy problem, the UK might actually yet become a powerhouse of growth thanks to AI.
AI gone wild 🤪
This is one of the more disturbing things I’ve read about when it comes to the uses of AI. And frankly, you may not want to read on past this line.
WARNING. Disturbing content follows.
I came across this article on 404 Media while researching about some of the developments in AI video creation. I’m fascinated by the blurring of the lines around reality and AI-generated worlds.
This comes off the back of what Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang was talking about at CES, where AI models are training in multiverse simulations. In essence, AI words are generated at infinite scale to test, try and learn in all feasible scenarios and situations. Then the most efficient and effective outcomes can be achieved.
The idea of AI-generated video to help create these worlds led me to come across an article on 404 Media which also references an article on Know Your Meme about what’s called “Minion Gore”.
Here’s where things get wild.
What this is, is real world gruesome videos being recreated where the humans in the videos are “Minionfied”, predominately using Runway’s Gen 3 Video-to-Video AI editing programs.
Now when we say gruesome, it’s mainly things such has war footage, public executions and, in some more select cases, murder videos that had been in the public domain.
That’s about as deep as I need to go on that.
The crazy thing is these videos are apparently popping up on social media, TikTok, X.com, Instagram and YouTube. They’re getting posted and shared faster than the platforms can take them down.
Even worse is that while platforms can try to moderate Minion Gore, the posters are quickly using AI to change the characters again. Some examples, as the article references, have changed from Minions to Santa Claus.
Now admittedly this isn’t an “AI” problem, it’s a human problem. But it’s a reminder that while I believe our AI future still delivers a net benefit to humanity, in the wrong hands and with the wrong intentions, AI can be used as a very dark, disturbing and dangerous tool.
Boomers & Busters 💰
AI and AI-related stocks moving and shaking up the markets this week. (All performance data below over the rolling week.) [Figures correct at time of writing.]
Boom 📈
- Team Internet Group (LSE:TIG) up 12%
- Echo IQ (ASX:EIQ) up 2%
- Darktrace Plc (LSE:DARK) up 0.5%
Bust 📉
- iRobot (NASDAQ:IRBT) down 35%
- Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) down 10%
- Taiwan Semiconductor (NYSE:TSM) down 9%
From the hive mind 🧠
- Elon Musk’s pushing hard into the development of AI for all his companies, from Tesla to SpaceX, X.com and xAI. But he cannot reach his AI vision alone. He needs to tap into the expertise of a lot of other companies, like Nvidia for instance. But not even Nvidia can do it alone. What other companies does Elon need? Well, here’s a look at exactly who.
- Mark Zuckerberg wants you to believe he’s now one of the “good guys” with Facebook’s “new” approach to freedom of speech. After his new makeover, doesn’t he just look the part too? The problem is he’s also still running one of the largest data companies in the world, and one of the companies at the forefront of AI. So when he says it’s for the people, he really means it’s for Meta and its profits.
- We’ve covered some good-news AI stories over time, from AI helping identify cancer early on to AI helping hedgehog populations. Well, here’s another, with AI potentially helping women get pregnant with greater success when undergoing IVF treatment.
Artificial Polltelligence 🗳️
Well, you’ve gone and done it. You’ve surprised me a little with the responses from last week’s question on owning Nvidia stock.
It’s pretty close to a tie here, which I will admit, I didn’t expect. At least not after the resounding win from our poll on 7 January.
Weirdest AI image of the day
Mike Tyson vs. Hurricane – r/weirddalle
ChatGPT’s random quote of the day
“All of the biggest technological inventions created by man—the airplane, the automobile, the computer—say little about his intelligence, but speak volumes about his laziness.”
– Mark Kennedy
Thanks for reading, see you next time!
Sam Volkering
Editor-in-Chief, AI Collision
