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Meta’s push to deploy its artificial intelligence system inside Britain’s public sector has taken a step forward after the tech giant awarded development funding to technology aimed at shortening NHS A&E waiting times.
Amid rival efforts by Silicon Valley tech companies to work with national and local government, Meta ran its first “hackathon” in Europe asking more than 200 programmers to devise ways to use its Llama AI system in UK public services and, one senior Meta executive said, “focused on the priorities of the Labour party”.
The event came after it emerged that Palantir, another US tech company, has been lobbying the Ministry of Justice and government ministers including the chancellor, Rachel Reeves. Microsoft also recently agreed a five-year deal with Whitehall departments to supply its AI Copilot technology to civil servants.
Meta’s hackathon was addressed by Nick Clegg, the former deputy prime minister and now Meta’s president of global affairs based in California. The UK AI minister, Feryal Clark, said “government can adopt AI, such as Meta’s open source model, to support our key missions”.
Asked what was in it for Meta to provide the free technology, Clegg said: “It is in the long run indirectly in our interest to see this ecosystem of Llama-based innovation because it then makes it much easier for us to reincorporate innovations that are out there into our own products.”
The Silicon Valley push comes amid concerns about the safety of AI, particularly in public services where clients may lack expertise or be too stretched to carry out due diligence. But Clegg argued that fears about the risks of AI were overblown.
“Who knows, maybe AI will start developing a mind of its own and will start wanting to turn us into paper clips by next Tuesday,” he said. “But I think that right now, the technology is way more primitive than a lot of the fears suggest.”
Clark played down fears Labour might impose stringent red tape, saying that while it would not “shy away from the significant risk AI represents” the government would “make sure that any regulation we introduce is proportionate, supports innovation and does not place undue burden on business”.
Last week Peter Kyle, the secretary of state for science and technology, admitted the government was treating the tech giants with “humility” as they outspent the British government on investment in innovation.
“We are having to apply a sense of statecraft to working with companies that we’ve in the past reserved for dealing with other states,” he said.
The moves to push Meta’s open-source AI platform for use in the public sector follow rising concern at the influence of tech giants. The role played by Elon Musk’s X platform in the US presidential election and the involvement of social media in inflaming the August riots in the UK added to the concerns.
Asked about the approach of Meta, which runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, Clegg drew a clear contrast between Meta and X over how content is handled.
“Our practices are completely different,” he said. “If you look at the UK riots, most of the people who caused a real problem were figures like Tommy Robinson, who has long been banned from our platform, or Andrew Tate. That’s not the case on Telegram, not the case on X.”
