Artificial Intelligence

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Germany doubles funds for AI ‘made in Europe’

Artificial Intelligence, Deep tech, Europe, Government and policy / /

On Wednesday, the German government announced that it would nearly double its funding for artificial intelligence research. The money pledged towards the development of AI systems now amounts to nearly €1bn, which is still far behind the $3.3bn (€3.04bn) in public funding the US reportedly threw at the field last year. 

The Federal Ministry for Education and Research said that AI is a “key technology” that offers enormous opportunities for science, growth, prosperity, competitiveness, and social added value. It further added that “technological sovereignty in AI must be secured,” and that Germany and Europe should take a leading position in a world “powered by AI.” 

This means that Germany on its own is drawing level with the funds pledged by the EU. The European Commission has also committed €1bn to AI research per year through the Horizon Europe program. Meanwhile, the Commissionstates that it will mobilise additional investments from both the private sector and the member states to reach an annual volume of €20bn. 

The increased funding was presented along with Germany’s Artificial Intelligence Action Plan by Federal Research Minister Bettina Stark-Watzinger. Earlier this month, the Minister argued that Germany “must bring its academic practices in line with its security interests in light of tensions with systemic rivals such as China.” 

The global AI race

Figures for public spending in China are notoriously tricky to pin down. However, in 2022, private AI investments in China were at $13.4bn (€12.35bn), still trailing far behind the US with a total of $47.4bn (€43.4bn). 

This week, the German government also proposed harsher export curbs on China for semiconductors and AI technologies, similar to the executive order signed by US President Biden a little while ago. Furthermore, it laid out plans to tighten the screening process for Chinese FDI.

With the funds, Germany is looking to set up 150 new university labs dedicated to researching artificial intelligence, expand data centres, and increase access to datasets for training advanced AI models. The goal is to then convert the research and skills to “visible and measurable economic success and a concrete, noticeable benefit for society.”

Additionally, the government says it hopes to show the unique selling point of AI “Made in Germany” (or “Made in Europe”). “We have AI that is explainable, trustworthy and transparent,” Stark-Watzinger said. “That’s a competitive advantage.”  

Indeed it is, if you have the intention of using it somewhere affected by forthcoming artificial intelligence regulation. While the world waits for the EU AI Act, which will set different rules for developers and deployers of AI systems according to a risk classification system, the Cyberspace Administration of China last month published its own “interim measures” rules for generative AI.

Although the internet watchdog says the state “encourages the innovative use of generative AI in all industries and fields,” AI developers must register their algorithms with the government, if their services are capable of influencing public opinion or can “mobilise” the public.

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UK commits £100M to secure AI chip components

Artificial Intelligence, Deep tech, Government and policy, UK / /

In an intensifying global battle for semiconductor self-sufficiency, the UK will reportedly spend £100mn of taxpayer money to buy AI chip technology from AMD, Intel, and Nvidia. The initiative is part of the  UK’s intention to build a national AI resource, but critics say it is too little, too late. 

As reported by The Guardian, a government official has confirmed that the UK is already in negotiations with Nvidia for the purchase of up to 5,000 graphic processing units (GPU). However, they also stated that the £100mn was way too little compared to what for instance the EU, US, and China are committing to the growth of a domestic semiconductor industry.

The UK accounts for only 0.5% of global semiconductor sales, according to a Parliamentary report. In May this year, the government announced it would commit £1bn over 10 years to bolster the industry. In comparison, the US and the EU are investing $50bn (€46bn) and €43bn, respectively. 

The idea, Rishi Sunak said at the time, is to play to the UK’s strengths. This means to focus efforts on areas like research and design, the PM stated. In turn, this can be contrasted to the approach of building large fabs, such as the ones Germany is spending billions in state aid to make a reality. 

UK’s AI summit at historic computer science site

Alongside a push (no matter its size) toward more advanced AI-powering chip capabilities, the UK recently announced the time for its much-publicised AI safety summit. The meeting between officials from “like-minded” states, tech executives, and academics will take place at Bletchley Park, situated between Cambridge and Oxford, at the beginning of November. 

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The site is considered the birthplace of the first programmable digital computer, that helped crack the Enigma encryption machine used by the Nazis, essentially tipping the scales of World War II. Today, it is home to the National Museum of Computing, run by the Bletchley Park Trust. 

Meanwhile, the race to secure components for chips, or the chips themselves, that can power AI systems, such as large language models (LLM), is accelerating. According to the Financial Times, Saudi Arabia has bought at least 3,000 of Nvidia’s processors, especially designed for generative AI. Its neighbour, the UAE, has far-reaching AI ambitions of its own, also having purchased thousands of advanced chips and developing its own LLM.  

Meanwhile, Chinese internet giants have reportedly rushed to secure billions of dollars worth of Nvidia chips ahead of a US tech investment ban coming into effect early next year. It is still unclear whether the UK will invite China to the gathering at Bletchley Park in November. The geopolitics and tech diplomacy of semiconductors could be entering its most delicate phase to date.

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AI could fall short on climate change due to biased datasets, study finds

Artificial Intelligence, Deep tech / /

Among the many benefits of artificial intelligence touted by its proponents is the technology’s potential ability to help solve climate change. If this is indeed the case, the recent step changes in AI couldn’t have come any sooner. This summer, evidence has continued to mount that Earth is already transitioning from warming to boiling. 

However, as intense as the hype has been around AI over the past months, there is also a lengthy list of concerns accompanying it. Its prospective use in spreading disinformation for one, along with potential discrimination, privacy, and security issues.

Furthermore, researchers at the University of Cambridge, UK, have found that bias in the datasets used to train AI models could limit their application as a just tool in the fight against global warming and its impact on planetary and human health. 

As is often the case when it comes to global bias, it is a matter of Global North vs. South. With most data gathered by researchers and businesses with privileged access to technology, the effects of climate change will, invariably, be seen from a limited perspective. As such, biased AI has the potential to misrepresent climate information. Meaning, the most vulnerable will suffer the most dire consequences. 

Call for globally inclusive datasets

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In a paper titled “Harnessing human and machine intelligence for planetary-level climate action” published in the prestigious journal Nature, the authors admit that “using AI to account for the continually changing factors of climate change allows us to generate better-informed predictions about environmental changes, allowing us to deploy mitigation strategies earlier.” 

This, they say, remains one of the most promising applications of AI in climate action planning. However, only if datasets used to train the systems are globally inclusive. 

“When the information on climate change is over-represented by the work of well-educated individuals at high-ranking institutions within the Global North, AI will only see climate change and climate solutions through their eyes,” said primary author and Cambridge Zero Fellow Dr Ramit Debnath. 

In contrast, those who have less access to technology and reporting mechanisms will be underrepresented in the digital sources AI developers rely upon. 

“No data is clean or without prejudice, and this is particularly problematic for AI which relies entirely on digital information,” the paper’s co-author Professor Emily Shuckburgh said. “Only with an active awareness of this data injustice can we begin to tackle it, and consequently, to build better and more trustworthy AI-led climate solutions.”

The authors advocate for human-in-the-loop AI designs that can contribute to a planetary epistemic web supporting climate action, directly enable mitigation and adaptation interventions, and reduce the data injustices associated with AI pretraining datasets. 

The need of the hour, the study concludes, is to be sensitive to digital inequalities and injustices within the machine intelligence community, especially when AI is used as an instrument for addressing planetary health challenges like climate change.

If we fail to address these issues, the authors argue, there could be catastrophic outcomes impacting societal collapse and planetary stability, including not fulfilling any climate mitigation pathways.

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Norwegian wealth fund warns of AI risks while reeling in billions from the tech

Artificial Intelligence, Corporates and innovation, Deep tech / /

To say that Norway’s Sovereign Wealth Fund made a killing these past months would be an understatement. The world’s largest investor in the stock market earned 1,501 billion crowns (€131.1bn) in the first half of 2023, and much of it due to the recent boom in AI.

To a large extent, the profits came from the fund’s shares in tech companies such as Apple, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Nvidia that all saw a surge from the current AI craze. Meanwhile, the fund is telling the very same companies to get serious about the responsible deployment and risks of artificial intelligence. 

“As AI becomes ubiquitous across the economy, it is likely to bring great opportunities, but also severe and uncharted risks,” the €1.28 trillion fund said in a letter published this week.

It added that the technology continues to develop at a pace that makes it challenging to predict and manage risks in the form of regulatory and reputational risk to companies, as well as broader societal implications related to, for instance, discrimination and disinformation. 

In order to mitigate the threats posed by the technology, the letter suggested the fund’s 9,000+ portfolio companies develop their expertise on AI on the board. 

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Boards “absolutely not on top” of AI, fund CEO says

In an interview with the Financial Times, the fund’s CEO, Nicolai Tangen, stated that “Boards are absolutely not on top of this.” He further added that the fund would vote against companies that failed to deliver on AI expertise at directorial level. 

The oil fund also wants companies to disclose and explain how they use AI, and how systems are designed and trained, so-called transparency and explainability. Furthermore, it is looking for robust risk management beyond a traditional business focus, adding human oversight and control to mitigate potential threats to privacy and discrimination. It did not go so far as to mention the doom of humankind. 

Meanwhile, Tangen is not shy in stating that, “If you don’t think there are opportunities with AI, then in my mind you are a complete moron.” 

In the letter, the fund also states that it supports the development of “a comprehensive and cohesive regulatory framework for AI that facilitates safe innovation and mitigation of adverse impacts.”

Yet, Tangen acknowledges that this will be “very hard” to achieve on a global scale, due to the technology’s near ubiquitous application in everything from education and military to cars and finance.

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Composition co-written by AI performed by choir and published as sheet music

Artificial Intelligence, Corporates and innovation, Creativity, Deep tech, Next Featured / /

Ed Newton-Rex, a creative AI pioneer and VP Audio at Stability AI, says that he’s become the first author to publish a piece of classical music that uses generative AI. The musician and entrepreneur wrote his “I stand in the library,” a piece for the choir and piano, to a poem produced by OpenAI‘s generative AI model GPT3.

Written back in 2022, the 15-minute composition has been premiered at the Live from London online classical music festival, performed by a choral group VOCES8. The full version of the performance is available (behind paywall) on the festival’s website, but here’s an exclusive preview to give you a general idea: