UK announces Meta-backed AI team to upgrade public services

LONDON, United Kingdom – The British government said on Tuesday, January 27, it had recruited a team of artificial intelligence specialists to build AI tools to improve transport, public safety and defense, using funding from Meta.

Prime Minister Keir Starmer, like many other leaders around the world, is looking to tap into the huge economic potential of developing an AI industry and, at the same time, use the technology to improve productivity across government.

The government said the AI experts would spend the next year developing open-source tools to improve how authorities maintain roads and transport networks, manage public safety, and make decisions on national security.

The body includes a data scientist from the Alan Turing Institute and university researchers whose expertise spans computer vision, applied machine learning for the public sector, robotics-driven imaging and the design of trustworthy, safety-critical AI systems.

The program will focus on developing technology that public bodies can run without relying on commercial, closed-source systems, it added.

Meta, which announced funding the project in July last year, said at the time the experts would be using open-source models like Meta’s artificial intelligence system, Llama — a large language model capable of processing data including text, video, images and audio.

It also said tools built with these models would be owned by the government, allowing departments to keep sensitive data in-house and adapt the technology as needed. – Rappler.com