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The Union Jack flying near the U.S. Capitol. | Getty Images

On Monday night, at the newly renovated residence of the British ambassador, Rishi Sunaks government introduced Washington to its latest soft power push: owning the global conversation on AI regulation.

Over Bombay gin cocktails and fish-and-chips hors doeuvres, attendees toasted the future at a reception to preview the UKs upcoming AI Safety Summit, set for the beginning of November.

Now, a lot of people and institutions would like to influence the development of AI. And to much of the world, Britain symbolizes the past more than the future.

But in that potential weakness the Sunak government sees its selling point: Pedigree.

The UKs storied past, so the argument goes, gives it a special claim on guiding humanitys navigation of an AI-powered future. We have a good reputation for innovation, is how Ambassador Karen Pierce put it to DFD.

(In a nod to the difficulties many government officials have in overseeing the development of fast-moving technologies, she also confessed I may be the least AI-literate person in the room.

In remarks to the crowd which included representatives of the British military, the American private sector and well-known AI ethicist Rumman Chowdhury Pierce expounded on her governments case for taking the global lead on AI safety: The UKs tech sector was the third in the world to achieve a cumulative valuation of $1 trillion, a milestone its government boasted of last year.

She also spent some time plugging the historic location of next months two-day summit: Bletchley Park, 50 miles northwest of London, known as the site where computing pioneer Alan Turing made early computing breakthroughs in his successful quest to break German codes in World War II.

In fact, Britains claims on the origins of computing go back another century, to the creation of the idea of a digital computer by the inventor Charles Babbage and his aristocratic collaborator, Ada Lovelace, the daughter of romantic poet Lord Byron.

So thats the present and the past. How about the future? Today, the worlds sixth-largest economy can lay claim to one of the worlds best-known AI firms, London-based DeepMind, and some its best-known AI researchers, like the London-born, Cambridge-educated Geoffrey Hinton.

But laying its claim on the future of AI remains a challenge: Google acquired DeepMind a decade ago, and Hinton has made his professional home in North America. Regulators in the EU, which the UK left almost four years ago, oversee a far larger domestic market.

Sunak is reportedly angling to use the summit to launch a multilateral AI Safety Institute, though a British tech official downplayed summits ambitions last night.

The important part of my brief for tonight was to manage expectations, said Emran Mian, the Director General for Digital Technologies and Telecoms at the UKs Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (the British equivalent of the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy). He spoke to POLITICO Tech podcast host Steven Overly at the event, and the full podcast episode will air in the coming days.

Britain has been angling for its own spot in the tech conversation for some time now, even installing an ambassador to Silicon Valley, making the case that the UK is a congenial home for tech firms worried about tougher EU regulations.

When it comes to AI, however, some Americans in the room were skeptical of the soft power play: One attendee, citing survey results that have not yet been released, said the British public is not especially concerned about AI safety, suggesting a lack of domestic interest could hobble the effort.

Another attendee, who deals with AI regulations around the world, said that Japan and Singapore have made more notable progress in formulating AI policies in recent years, though theyve done so more quietly.

Of Singapore, he suggested the UK could make a different nod to history: They should look to their former colony.

A message from CTIA The Wireless Association:

China is pushing countries to adopt their 5G spectrum vision and build a global market that favors their tech companies. To counter Chinas ambitions, we need our own compelling vision for U.S. spectrum leadership over the next decade, and a clear commitment to make more 5G spectrum available. For our economic competitiveness, our national security, and our 5G leadership, America needs a bold new National Spectrum Strategy. Learn more.

With cities and states known as the laboratories of democracy, some local leaders are starting to take that quite literally when it comes to AI.

As part of the Mayors Innovation Studio hosted at Bloombergs CityLab conference later this week, 100-plus mayors will discuss how they hope to use AI to optimize city governance. I spoke ahead of the conference with James Anderson, Bloomberg Philanthropies leader of government innovation, to get an early look into what the mayors are most excited about tinkering with.

When cities understand how other cities are doing things, where theyre using it, where theyre gaining efficiency, and also where theyre striking out, we see more effective interventions and fewer mayors striking out and re-creating the wheel in ways that waste time, energy and resources, Anderson said, saying that the mayors surveyed pre-conference are most interested in learning how to use AI to tweak transportation, infrastructure, and public safety.

He said he hopes to send the mayors home with some action items: Eighty percent of the mayors expressed interest in using AI but only 11 percent of them are actually using it or experimenting with it. very few mayors have implemented regulations, very few mayors have appointed policy leads, and very few mayors have started training their staff, Anderson said, adding that after the conference ends Friday Bloomberg Philanthropies plan to track progress as cities start to implement the programs discussed there. Derek Robertson

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The Fugees' Pras Michel. | Andrew Harnik/AP

The nineties are back! in court.

Pras Michel, the Fugees rapper who found himself at the center of a massive financial and diplomatic scandal that led to his conviction in April for conspiring to make straw campaign donations, witness tampering and acting as an unregistered foreign agent for China, is now countersuing. He argues that his lawyer relied on AI to an extent that deprived him of the right to competent counsel.

As POLITICOs Josh Gerstein noted, in Michels motion he says his lawyer used an experimental artificial intelligence (AI) program to draft the closing argument, ignoring the best arguments and conflating the charged schemes, and he then publicly boasted that the AI program turned hours or days of legal work into seconds. He then, allegedly, proudly stated at the end of the trial words to the effect of AI wrote our closing.

That being said, he did not win. One might also recall a story from June, when a New York City law firm was slapped with a fine for using ChatGPT to write a brief that contained references to non-existent case law. Good rule of thumb: If youd double-check a piece of software when using it to help with your kids homework, its probably not worth jeopardizing your own legal reputation over. Derek Robertson

Stay in touch with the whole team: Ben Schreckinger ([emailprotected]); Derek Robertson ([emailprotected]); Mohar Chatterjee ([emailprotected]); Steve Heuser ([emailprotected]); Nate Robson ([emailprotected]) and Daniella Cheslow ([emailprotected]).

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A message from CTIA The Wireless Association:

Americas spectrum policy is stuck in neutral. The FCCs spectrum auction authority has not been renewed, there is no pipeline of new spectrum for 5G, and China is poised to dominate global spectrum discussions, pushing for 15X more 5G spectrum than the U.S. America cannot afford to fall behind and become a spectrum island. The Biden Administrations forthcoming National Spectrum Strategy is a unique and important opportunity to recommit ourselves to a bold vision for global spectrum leadership, secure our 5G leadership today and long-term leadership of the industries and innovations of the future. For our economic competitiveness and our national security, we need a National Spectrum Strategy that is committed to allocating 1500 MHz of new mid-band spectrum for 5G, and that reaffirms the critical role that NTIA and the FCC play in leading the nations spectrum policy. Learn more.

Read more from the original source:
'A toast to the future': UK sells AI play to DC - POLITICO