UK dismisses independent AI advisory board | Hacker News Reader

UK dismisses independent AI advisory board

thenextweb.com

60 pointswebmaven12 comments

This article seems to be missing the point somehow. The CDEI advisory board seem to have been set up with a time-boxed tenure, which has now passed. It's not some nefarious deal - the outgoing board even posted a blog about it on the official CDEI website https://cdei.blog.gov.uk/2023/09/26/championing-responsible-...

And the tenure was not renewed which I think amounts to the same—the UK, by choice, no longer has an independent AI advisory board.

That's not the UK's independent AI advisory board, it's an advisory board to one specific govt body which is part of a specific govt deparment. Not 100% clear why having an independent advisory board is something to aspire to.

I think the idea is that it's not influenced by politicians who don't know anything about the topic.

That definitely has value if the politicians subsequently listen to the advice. In the UK at the moment that is sadly unlikely.

In that case it's useless and disbanding it is sensible, no?

As some have pointed out: the board was set up for a particular time, which has passed. It's good to see a government program that is established, does its work, and then goes away. Too many government programs live on forever, becoming nothing but pork.

That said, this is the UK government we're talking about. Technically clueless, dreaming of the 1984 surveillance state.

> this is the UK government we're talking about. Technically clueless, dreaming of the 1984 surveillance state.

100% true. on current form, they are most likely to appoint a large donor/old boss/school chum to run with it.

I was expecting to see the advisory board stuffed with the usual “Tatler Tech” cronies — Joanna Shields, Rohan Silva, Michael Acton Smith, etc — but my disdain is way out of date and it seems there were some actually good people involved?:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/advisory-board-of...

> “The existential risks seem to be the current focus, at least in the PM’s office,” a former member of the CDEI’s advisory board told ComputerWeekly.com. “You could say that it’s easy to focus on future ‘existential’ risks as it avoids having to consider the detail of what is happening now and take action.”

This, unfortunately, seems to be a very common attitude. Often actively promoted by many discussing/promoting the space.

On a page linked: https://therecord.media/uk-disbands-ai-advisory-board-cdei-r...

While the board’s webpage states it has been closed, the government’s note did not update the page in a way that would have sent an email alert to those subscribed to the topic.

Anyone got details on this?

Was this the same advisory board that didn't have LLMs as a future risk in its reports and was caught completely blindsided by it's emergence?

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