Ministers have called on Tony Blair’s thinktanks and private tech companies to provide guidance on deploying AI in the UK government, in a move campaigners compared to “inviting foxes to consult on the future of the henhouse”.
Treasury Chief Secretary James Murray chaired a meeting on Wednesday with the director of AI at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change (TBI), the chairman of IBM and senior executives from AI companies, including Faculty AI, now part of Accenture, and Dax Hunter-Torick, a former communications adviser at Google, Facebook and Elon Musk’s SpaceX.
“These people can really help us drive change in the public sector – giving us hard truths on our approach to AI and advice on where we need to prioritize our investments to support real efficiencies,” Murray said. He said his advice would “serve in efficiency processes ahead of the next spending review”.
The move comes after Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said last month that the government aimed to “make the UK the fastest AI adopter in the G7”.
The Treasury said it shows it is “committed to partnering with the private sector on the deployment of artificial intelligence in the public sector so it can improve efficiency and productivity”.
But foxgloveThe Tech Equity campaign group said the Treasury meeting was “further evidence of the government’s overly cozy relationship with Big Tech”.
“Giving tech giants privileged access to decision-making regarding who buys the products they supply is clearly a risk,” said Donald Campbell, director of advocacy.
“It is difficult to understand how ministers are unable to recognize a potential conflict of interest that is painfully obvious to everyone else.”
Ministers were expected to hear criticism of the way the government procures AI and related technology, the absence of the highest caliber talent in Whitehall to drive AI implementation, and the failure to turn pilots into large-scale projects.
The government has signed MoUs with AI companies OpenAI, Anthropic and GoogleDeepMind, accepted $1 million (£730,000) from Meta to fund experts to “develop cutting-edge AI solutions…supporting national security and defense teams”, and signed contracts with Palantir in health, defense and policing.
This week the Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, announced A Microsoft event in London plans to “dramatically expand the use of AI across the entire court system”.
Laura Gilbert, a former senior Downing Street AI and data science adviser who now leads AI for TBI, was due to join the speakers on Wednesday.
TBI is funded by more than £250m given and pledged by the Ellison Foundation, an organization named after Oracle founder Larry Ellison.
