UK to Develop Sovereign AI Model

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The AI wars are getting serious: Today the UK government announced that they are developing their own sovereign AI model. Here's what this means for the future of AI 🧵

Earlier today it was reported that the UK government was launching a 'Foundational Model Taskforce'. The group would be receiving £100 million (or $124.5 million) in funding. Their mission is clear: Create an AI model that is globally competitive.

In some ways this was an inevitable announcement: -The UK clearly differs from the rest of Europe in its receptiveness to AI (some EU countries have been outright hostile) -It also signals that the UK does not want to make itself reliant on American companies (like OpenAI)

I think there's a very important trend developing here. It's clear that every country wants to have control over their own AI model(s) in the future. This suggests that the future of AI could look very different than that of the open internet (which almost all countries share)

This also comes at a time when other companies are trying to wall off their own datasets to build their own models. Twitter, Reddit, Stack Overflow, all announced their intentions to start charging for training data this month. Elon went as far as threatening to sue Microsoft

Now companies will also have to contend with the rules of different countries. If a Tweet comes from a UK-based user, who has the right to train on that data? Does it belong to Twitter? The UK government? Or both?

There will also be implications for users in the long term. Will certain models only be allowed in certain countries? Will you need to use a VPN to access your favorite model? All possibilities worth exploring.

Lastly, it's worth continuing to mention that it doesn't have to be this way. There are projects trying to combine crypto & AI to create AI models that are open source and anyone can access. Is this the antidote to the increasingly segmented future we are heading towards?

What do you think of this trend of countries developing their own AI models? Let me know in the comments below.