With President-elect Donald Trump’s 2024 election win leading to the appointment of Elon Musk as head of Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), the landscape of AI in the United States faces a huge shift and increased complexity. But across the Atlantic what Is Keir Starmer’s UK Government doing to drive proactive AI comms?
Since the election victory in July, the Government Communications Service (GCS) has committed to embracing responsible use of generative AI technology “to deliver effective, engaging and increasingly relevant communications to the public.” As part of this, it has laid out a number of key principals of how it will approach AI on the Government’s website:
- Always use generative AI in accordance with the latest official government guidance.
- The central GCS team at the Cabinet Office will provide training on responsible use of generative AI to all government communicators, in particular around ensuring accuracy, inclusivity, and mitigating biases.
- Require that all our contracted and framework suppliers adhere to this GCS policy on the responsible use of generative AI, and have safeguards in place to ensure this.
- Uphold factuality in our use of generative AI.
- Engage with appropriate government organisations, strategic suppliers, technology providers, and civil society, around significant developments in generative AI, and the implications for its use in government communications.
- Continue to review reputable research into the public’s attitudes towards generative AI and consider how this policy should evolve in response.
As well as this, the Secretary of State for Science, Innovation and Technology, Peter Kyle MP recently put his name to a research paper titled “Assuring a Responsible Future for AI”, in which he explained the UK government will look to mitigate the risks associated with AI and drive adoption of safe and responsible AI by maximising future growth of the UK’s AI assurance market.
Within this, he also announced the UK government will be driving demand for AI assurance tools and services through the development of an AI Assurance Platform.
The government is also fuelling sustainability change using AI and earlier this year allocated £1.73 million in funding to support innovative AI projects to help reduce carbon emissions across what it deemed ‘critical’ three sectors: Electricity Generation and Distribution, Transport Decarbonisation, and Renewables Generation and Land Use.
The funding was revealed as part of the government’s ‘Artificial Intelligence for Decarbonisation Innovation Programme’ and puts the trust in UK developers to use the potential of AI in revolutionising energy efficiency, increasing renewables, and decarbonising key industries.
By investing in AI in key programmes such as this, noting down its key principals, and undertaking vast research, Keir Starmer’s government is proactively driving change within AI across the UK and now has at least five years to make pivotal changes in how the Government operates.
