UK drops ‘safety’ from its AI body, now called AI Security Institute, inks MOU with Anthropic | TechCrunch

February 14, 2025February 13, 2025 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The U.K. government wants to make a hard pivot into boosting its economy and industry with AI, and as part of that, it’s pivoting an institution that it founded a little over a year ago for a very different purpose. Today the Department of Science, Industry and Technology announced that it would be renaming the AI Safety Institute to the “AI Security Institute.” (Same first letters: same URL.) With that, the body will shift from primarily exploring areas like existential risk and bias in large language models, to a focus on cybersecurity, specifically “strengthening protections against the risks AI poses to national security and crime.”

Alongside this, the government also announced a new partnership with Anthropic. No firm services were announced but the MOU indicates the two will “explore” using Anthropic’s AI assistant Claude in public services; and Anthropic will aim to contribute to work in scientific research and economic modeling. And at the AI Security Institute, it will provide tools to evaluate AI capabilities in the context of identifying security risks.

Business is ‘staring down the precipice’ over Brexit | CNN

March 13, 2019March 12, 2019 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Companies in the United Kingdom are suffering from a bad case of déjà vu after lawmakers rejected a second version of the Brexit deal negotiated by Prime Minister Theresa May.

“Enough is enough,” said Carolyn Fairbairn, director general of the Confederation of British Industry, a business lobby. “It’s time for parliament to stop this circus,” she added, stressing that “jobs and livelihoods depend on it.”

The stunning defeat increases the chances that Britain will crash out of the European Union without a deal in just 17 days — doing big damage to the economy — or that Brexit will be delayed, prolonging the uncertainty for business.

Facebook is buying UK’s Bloomsbury AI to ramp up natural language tech in London | TechCrunch

July 2, 2018 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Perhaps rightly, there has long been a perception that Google-owned Deepmind has been the most aggressive in hoovering up a lot of the U.K.’s best talent in artificial intelligence, but now Facebook appears to be turning its eye to the country.

TechCrunch understands that the social network behemoth is acquiring London-based Bloomsbury AI, a startup that has built natural language processing (NLP) technology to help machines answer questions based on information gleaned from documents. According to sources, Facebook plans to deploy the company’s team and tech to work on combatting fake news and to tackle other content issues.

Brexit talks: U.K. and EU begin divorce negotiations | CNN Money

June 19, 2017June 19, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Brexit talks are officially underway.

Officials charged with negotiating the first departure of a country from the European Union were in Brussels on Monday to kick off the most consequential series of talks for the U.K. since the end of World War II.

Chief U.K. negotiator David Davis is meeting his EU counterpart, former French foreign minister Michel Barnier, to grapple with a complex set of questions about the future of trade and migration, how much the country must pay to settle its bill with the bloc, and the rights of millions of citizens who have settled in Britain or Europe.

Why Western brands are taking a chance on the UK | Fast Casual

May 22, 2017May 21, 2017 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

While dining out seems to have lost some of its appeal to US consumers, it’s becoming a more popular option for people in the United Kingdom.

“It is a solid fact that the demand for eating out among UK consumers are growing,” said Elif Polat, Research Analyst at Euromonitor International.

“Consumer foodservice grew by 3 percent in value terms in 2016, an important achievement for the industry considering the fact that UK is a quite mature market,” she said in an interview with FastCasual

Why Should SMEs Care About Equal Pay? | The Startup Magazine

July 15, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Equality, Diversity, Women on Boards, Gender Wage Gap, and Wage Gap Reporting – Its safe to say that that gender equality is high on the agenda. Actually, all equality and diversity issues are being addressed in a huge way, right across the globe.

And rightly so, its 2016 and to be politically correct, and as a society we are being pushed to acknowledge that ‘All Lives Matter’. This ethos has been creeping into the world of business for some time now. So surely, if all lives matter than we would all be treated entirely as equals? Especially in Great Britain; one of the most advanced countries in the world, with some of the globes most prestigious schools and an education system that is much sought after. A country that will now see its 2nd female prime minister in power.

The fact we have a female running the country shows just how far we have come in the last 100 years, The Parliamentary Qualification of Women Act was only passed in 1918, the same year that women were given the right to vote – previous to that we didn’t have a voice to speak of.

Theresa May is next British prime minister; Leadsom quits Conservative race | Business Insider

July 11, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Theresa May will become the next prime minister of the United Kingdom on Wednesday evening.

Current Prime Minister David Cameron announced on Monday afternoon that he intends to resign by Wednesday evening, paving the way for the Home Secretary to take over much earlier than initially expected.

Speaking outside 10 Downing Street, Cameron said he was “delighted” May was going to be his successor and lauded her as a “strong” politician.

Conservative party official Graham Brady confirmed earlier in the day that he was set to formally appoint May as the party’s new leader after her only challenger, Andrea Leadsom, pulled out at about noon in the UK.

EU referendum: How is the US (not) like the EU? | BBC News

June 22, 2016 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

As the Brexit referendum debate approaches its day of judgement, many Americans have been left with a number of questions.

What is Brexit? What happens if the UK votes to leave? And, uh, what do the letters EU stand for again?

So here are some basics. The EU is the European Union. The people of the United Kingdom may – or may not- want to leave.

Like the US, the EU has a flag. They both have their own currencies. They control their external borders and their citizens have an unlimited right of movement within their internal borders. They regulate immigration.

And, perhaps, the forces that have led the UK to consider withdrawing from the EU could also be at play in the US.

No, seriously. Here are handful of ways the EU and the US are similar enough to merit such consideration, and a few reasons why they aren’t.