Another 'Institute' for AI? Really?

Governments, when faced with new technology, tend to want to be seen to be taking action, rather than actually taking action. So here in the UK, the current government paid a small fortune to host the World Safety Summit at Bletchley Park. After much smiling for the cameras, we now realise that it was little more than a PR event.

Ministers fall over themselves to mention Alan Turing, when they should, in all honesty be ashamed of what they did to him, and others at Bletchley Park.

Alan Turing was subjected to a brutal and tragic series of events related to his homosexuality and government actions during the mid-20th century by the UK Government. During his time, homosexuality was illegal in the United Kingdom. The government had laws in place that criminalized homosexual acts between men and in 1952, Turing's homosexuality became known to the authorities. He was promptly arrested and charged with ‘gross indecency’ in 1952. He was convicted and faced two options: imprisonment or probation with chemical castration.

Turing opted for chemical castration, which involved the administration of hormonal treatment (injections of synthetic estrogen) to suppress his libido. This was seen as a form of punishment and an attempt to "cure" his homosexuality. What few mention, is that despite his wartime contributions, due to his conviction and the treatment he received, Turing's security clearance was revoked. This had catastrophic consequences for his career, as he was no longer able to work on sensitive government projects, including cryptography, where he had made significant contributions during the War. He faced discrimination and hardship, and in June 1954, he died by suicide. He was only 41.

The Government has a pretty bad record on safety for technologists!

Another victim by the Government was a hero of mine, the brilliant Tommy Flowers, who literally built Colossus, one of the very first computers, partly from his own pocket, which he could ill afford. He was a genius but while his boss got a Knighthood, he got nothing and was bitter about this, being passed over and unrecognised for the rest of his life.

I’d rather our Government had some humility on this front, rather than creating these jobs for the usual suspects. Yet another Institute on the public purse. We already have the Alan Turing Institute, funded by the Government since 2015 also the Ada Lovelace Institute. How many of these do you need? Either could have coped with this task… but no, we need more highly paid appartchicks, another big glass office, more noise. You can tell from the announcement how this will shake out, and I quote

"We are grateful to the companies and civil society organisations that have already expressed an interest in seconding people to the Institute." 

Oh dear! In other words, the establishment have it all sown up.

There’s a mountain of frameworks, committees, papers, recommendations and nonsense in this area, churned out by an army of 2nd rate academics and plain old grifters. The same old names keep cropping up. Such a shame that we’re choosing to talk a lot of talk but not walk the walk.

It will, no doubt, be placed in London!