Trump is taking AI seriously – why aren’t we?
- The Government says we may be four years from AGI, but it doesn't act like it
- The UK still lacks the core ingredients needed for building a competitive AI industry
- In the age of Turing, the countries that get rich will have the greatest reserves of compute
AI is an expensive enterprise, one that is as much about raw materials and energy as it is clever algorithms. You need to get hold of chips, stick them in a data centre somewhere and ask them to multiply matrices until the sand starts to think. This is the basic reality at the heart of any attempt for middle powers like the UK to build independent AI capacity. You need cash; you need energy; you need know-how – in that order.
Despite some impressive recent models from Chinese labs, the United States currently leads AI development. That’s because it has deep capital markets willing to spend big on chips to train and serve models, which allows individual companies to spend more on compute than the whole of the UK. The US also has Nvidia, which builds the chips that keep the AI show on the road.
The whole piece is well worth reading, not so much because of what is implied about the future of AI, but because of what is implied about Net Zero. It highlights the futile ideological aspirations which should not dictate any government policy anywhere in the world, but have been dictating UK government policy for years.
Here in the UK we probably have to cling onto the hope that AI turns to be a failure, because it may be too late to join in. Otherwise the smart people will leave, if they haven't left already.
Of course, the Government isn’t acting like AGI is four years away. If it was, it would be looking to increase compute by 100x from the current floor. It would pull out all the stops to make energy cheaper. And it would offer US firms tax breaks to build compute capacity at home. This would all be small beer, but it might take us from ‘bad’ to ‘somewhat bad’ for the UK’s size relative to Uncle Sam.
Of course, the Government isn’t acting like AGI is four years away. If it was, it would be looking to increase compute by 100x from the current floor. It would pull out all the stops to make energy cheaper. And it would offer US firms tax breaks to build compute capacity at home. This would all be small beer, but it might take us from ‘bad’ to ‘somewhat bad’ for the UK’s size relative to Uncle Sam.
5 comments:
And so with much ado the Government (of the future) turns on TSR2 the first British AGI machine. It is asked how to further Net Zero... so it turns itself off.
DJ - that's a good name for it, not surprised that it took advantage of the new End of Life Bill.
To be fair to the government, an islamist country similar to Iran or Pakistan does not need energy, AI or data centres.
But according to Douglas Adams textbook of alternative history the answer is 42, what more is needed?
Anon - good point, Net Zero could be here sooner than we think.
Woodsy - another good point and the answer could even come before the question, giving the UK system one big advantage over any Elon Musk version.
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