Keir Starmer's time is up

[Smokeandsteam]

I'm not trying to bolster Reeves, but she's not done anything worse than anyone else (bar Kwarteng) in the past 15 years, which has been pretty grim all-round.

Agreed. And therein lies the problem. It’s continuity Osborne/Hunt economics.

The market always tries to beat up Labour governments, and yet Labour chancellor’s consistently seem to believe that the answer is to shift further to the right in the hope that the sacrifice appeases the market.

Reeves could have set a budget that taxed wealth, protected the poor and then appealed to supportive public inquiry needs facing down the markets.

As it is, they’ve kept the child benefit cap, cuts the winter fuel allowance, denied the WASPI women, taxed employment rather than the super rich and still ended up here

 

[Smokeandsteam]

.

 

[GarveyLives]

Liz Truss has sent a cease and desist letter to Starmer according to Sky News. Seemingly it’s about comments she crashed the economy.

"Liz Truss has sent a cease and desist letter to Sir Keir Starmer, demanding that he stops claiming that she crashed the economy, it can be revealed ...

The lawyers even suggest that the assertions from Sir Keir before the July general election contributed towards Ms Truss being ousted as the MP for South West Norfolk ..."

Truss sends Starmer cease and desist letter over claim she ‘crashed the economy’

 

[Humberto]

It's all coming anyway isn't it. Suspect it's just about keeping pace and sounding active although the figures sound serious.

UK to 'mainline AI in the veins' under new plans from Sir Keir Starmer

The government will be hoping the plans - with promises of billions of pounds and thousands of jobs - can help stymie the claims they are mismanaging the economy and stunting growth in the UK.

news.sky.com

 

[Serge Forward]

Will you be able to get a smart phone or computer not equipped with AI? If not I'll probably ditch t'internet when AI takes over (apart from using Urban75, as I'm sure editor wouldn't countenance such bollocks) and go back to pen and paper and just reading printed publications that aren't too dire.

 

[two sheds]

.

 

[editor]

Will you be able to get a smart phone or computer not equipped with AI? If not I'll probably ditch t'internet when AI takes over (apart from using Urban75, as I'm sure editor wouldn't countenance such bollocks) and go back to pen and paper and just reading printed publications that aren't too dire.

There is no way in Earth I'm going to (knowingly) allow AI profiles/bots/whatever to contribute to this site.

 

[Puddy_Tat]

View attachment 459270

 

[Humberto]

Seems like a good project given it's all coming. Lucky for us in the UK we are quite good at the cutting edge stuff as pandemic vaccines bore out. Jump in I say or be left behind.

 

[kabbes]

Starmer is just taking about automation of regular processes in that article, which is always the goal of corporations anyway*. It’s what “AI” was always originally intended to do, and it does have potential to help a lot in that regard. It’s not AI being used to replace thinking, which is the dumb-shit use-cases I’m seeing proposed more these days.

*Indeed, automation is arguably the defining metaphor of capitalism. The capitalist is seen as the producer, despite not personally actually being involved in the production process. That can only be the case because the production process is seen as taking place by itself. The capitalist thus forms the thinking “head” of the machine while the production process is the unthinking “hands” that simply do what the head tells them to do.

 

[Kevbad the Bad]

Jump in I say or be left behind.

Said the proverbial lemming.

 

[Pickman's model]

Seems like a good project given it's all coming. Lucky for us in the UK we are quite good at the cutting edge stuff as pandemic vaccines bore out. Jump in I say or be left behind.

At least there'll be some intelligence in government, albeit artificial

 

[Plumdaff]

There are some potentially useful things AI can do. My health organisation is looking at AI that could overcome some of the H&S/ governance problems we have with different case notes systems - so an AI that could update all records when someone is admitted to hospital, or has a safeguarding concern raised etc.

What is more concerning is when AI is being used to triage patients (as is already happening in parts of the English NHS), or to offer low level therapy. That's always going to be attractive as you can employ less people, but has masses of error/ bias/ safety issues.

 

[Elpenor]

15 years of austerity and then AI comes to take our jobs

Starmer’s party claims to be the party of work

 

[two sheds]

It's largely down to the information used to train the AI system. There's a lot of interesting work in medical systems for diagnosis and the like (as Plumdaff posted while I was writing this) but I wonder about its use when it replaces teachers - what information are they using to train the AI there?

That'll decide what is taught and what answers are given to pupils on the different subjects and has to be open to wide-scale abuse, particularly if (when?) the fundamentalists start getting their influence felt.

 

[magneze]

This could be quite positive, especially building our own "public compute" capacity. Sure it's dressed up in AI but building public compute is a useful thing in and of itself. Currently public compute is entirely dominated by US companies. There's been a few mentions of Techno-feudalism recently but one of the ways to fight against it is doing stuff like this. It'd be great if we start doing something like chip making here too. I hope that's part of the plan.

As good as this country can be about building stuff like this though, is the ability for the financial services system to just sell it off for a quick buck. ARM chips power everything - used to be British but was sold off. DeepMind AI - sold off to Google years ago. Those are just two that come to mind, I'm sure there are so many others.

If this country can keep hold of the ownership of the resources put into this effort then it'll be worth it, otherwise it's just another way to enrich the investment bankers. Again.

I wonder if any journalists actually ask that question - because to me that's actually the most pertinent question.

 

[Pickman's model]

15 years of austerity and then AI comes to take our jobs

Starmer’s party claims to be the party of work

the party of business

 

[Pickman's model]

This could be quite positive, especially building our own "public compute" capacity. Sure it's dressed up in AI but building public compute is a useful thing in and of itself. Currently public compute is entirely dominated by US companies. There's been a few mentions of Techno-feudalism recently but one of the ways to fight against it is doing stuff like this. It'd be great if we start doing something like chip making here too. I hope that's part of the plan.

As good as this country can be about building stuff like this though, is the ability for the financial services system to just sell it off for a quick buck. ARM chips power everything - used to be British but was sold off. DeepMind AI - sold off to Google years ago. Those are just two that come to mind, I'm sure there are so many others.

If this country can keep hold of the ownership of the resources put into this effort then it'll be worth it, otherwise it's just another way to enrich the investment bankers. Again.

I wonder if any journalists actually ask that question - because to me that's actually the most pertinent question.

it will be just another way to enrich the investment bankers and hedge funds

Private sector lobbyists embedded into Labour’s shadow cabinet teams

 

[magneze]

Of course it will. It'd be great if journalists ask the question though, my sense is that most won't bother and just wibble on about AI destroying the world or some shit.

 

[Sue]

It'd be great if we start doing something like chip making here too. I hope that's part of the plan.

As good as this country can be about building stuff like this though, is the ability for the financial services system to just sell it off for a quick buck. ARM chips power everything - used to be British but was sold off. DeepMind AI - sold off to Google years ago. Those are just two that come to mind, I'm sure there are so many others.

If this country can keep hold of the ownership of the resources put into this effort then it'll be worth it, otherwise it's just another way to enrich the investment bankers. Again.

We do some chip manufacturing here but not much. We used to do a lot more (albeit mainly for large US companies) but after the very generous subsidies ran out, wafer fabs were offshored to cheaper locations. They cost a lot of money to set up and require skilled staff and given how poor we are at long-term investment, doing this on any scale anytime soon seems pretty unlikely. (Unless generous subsidies are offered again but even then...)

 

[Serge Forward]

Of course it will. It'd be great if journalists ask the question though, my sense is that most won't bother and just wibble on about AI destroying the world or some shit.

It will. Mark my words.

 

[magneze]

It will. Mark my words.

What will? It'll all be sold off or AI will destroy the world? Both?

 

[Artaxerxes]

Made a thread for the ai stuff

AI - Starmers 50 point plan to be released (13/1/25)

Bet your all excited https://www.gov.uk/government/news/prime-minister-sets-out-blueprint-to-turbocharge-ai https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/jan/12/mainlined-into-uks-veins-labour-announces-huge-public-rollout-of-ai Artificial intelligence will be “mainlined into the veins” of the...

www.urban75.net

 

[Elpenor]

Why is the “Labour” government desperately keen to eliminate so many peoples jobs and livelihoods?

 

[Serge Forward]

What will? It'll all be sold off or AI will destroy the world? Both?

AI is being developed for profit with, at best, minimal regard for any broader economic, social or ethical consequences. So, we're fucked, irrespective of whether developers hold onto it, we're fucked.

 

[ska invita]

Why is the “Labour” government desperately keen to eliminate so many peoples jobs and livelihoods?

GROOOOOWTH Zombie capitalism never dies

 

[magneze]

We do some chip manufacturing here but not much. We used to do a lot more (albeit mainly for large US companies) but after the very generous subsidies ran out, wafer fabs were offshored to cheaper locations. They cost a lot of money to set up and require skilled staff and given how poor we are at long-term investment, doing this on any scale anytime soon seems pretty unlikely. (Unless generous subsidies are offered again but even then...)

I don't understand why this was left to wither and die. Not just here, in the US too. Stupid. At least Biden did something about this.

 

[Whagwan]

Surely, as long as the economy grows us little people will get a chance to share in that growth.

You could even say it might trickle down to us.

 

[Pickman's model]

AI is being developed for profit with, at best, minimal regard for any broader economic, social or ethical consequences. So, we're fucked, irrespective of whether developers hold onto it, we're fucked.

someone will have to sweep up the mess when the wheels come off the ai juggernaut

 

[Pickman's model]

Surely, as long as the economy grows us little people will get a chance to share in that growth.

You could even say it might trickle down to us.

that's not rain trickling down and it sure as hell isn't money