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Probably42 News - May 2023
Welcome to our May Newsletter!
We’ve been particularly active on topics relating to Artificial Intelligence in the last couple of months, with some notable success. You’ve probably noticed that the media world is full of AI these days too.
We mentioned in our last newsletter in March that a report had been produced by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change called ‘A New National Purpose: Innovation Can Power the Future of Britain’ endorsed by Tony Blair and William Hague.
We felt that, although an excellent document, it had some important omissions, much as the National AI Strategy did, so we put together a submission to them. We were rewarded by them responding positively to it and inviting us to take part in an online meeting with them, as part of the further research they are currently doing. This gave us an opportunity to expand on the proposals we had made and input some more detailed information to them. We look forward to seeing how it influences their next output.
The thrust of our submission was that most of the discussion at the moment is around the opportunity of AI related to Public and Private Sector organisations and that two aspects are being missed:
- Using AI to improve society for the good of all – taking a societal perspective, not just a business-led perspective
- Managing and overcoming the downsides and unintended consequences of AI deployment
In our view it would be a missed opportunity on an unprecedented scale for the Government not to consider the first and irresponsible not to tackle the second.
We put forward a number of proposals related to these which you can see at Artificial Intelligence - Feedback to the Institute for Global Change
Recent Discussions
Inspired by our AI discussions, we decided it was timely to take a deeper look ourselves at AI and Society so our April/May topic was AI and re-shaping our society. The output from these discussions is now available and unusually we produced two companion documents to give each an appropriate level of focus:
- Artificial Intelligence and Re-shaping our Society
- Harnessing and controlling Artificial Intelligence
Forthcoming Discussions
Our topic for May, given that we have just been reminded in a big way that we are a constitutional monarchy, is: ‘Developing the monarchy as an asset for the 21st century’. You can see the agenda at Topic for May - Monarchy as an asset for the 21st century.
As background to this you may be interested in a couple of poll results:
and prior to the coronation
Government Information that may interest you
As usual we highlight more examples of information on Parliament activity and outputs which may interest you:
- The Committee on Standards in Public Life view on the Governance of Artificial Intelligence CSPL submission to Science and Technology Committee inquiry on Governance of AI - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- The Government’s approach to AI regulation AI regulation: a pro-innovation approach - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
- And receiving a fair bit of media coverage Anti-Social Behaviour Action Plan - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)
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Why not join a Group?
If you’d like to join one of the Probably42 discussion groups held via videoconferencing, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you more details. We very much want a diversity of viewpoints, so you can be sure your views will be welcomed. Remember it’s about relaxed discussion and having an enjoyable time, with hopefully some useful ideas identified.
We also want to encourage face-to-face real world discussion groups, as feeders into the main online discussions. If you’d like to find out more about the one in Berkshire, or if you’d like to see one start in your area, just email in response to this newsletter and we’ll send you details.
Feedback
We always welcome any feedback, thoughts, ideas or questions about Probably42. Simply reply to this newsletter and you’ll receive a personal reply.
All the best
Tony