Spending small on artificial intelligence

The UK government’s odd twice-yearly press conference about its spending plans is nearly upon us, and some feel-good morsels of information have been trailed ahead of time. Philip Hammond, the chancellor, is apparently trying to burnish his tech credentials, no small task for a man whose predecessor not so much embraced the tech community as fell prone before it in grovelling adulation.

According to the BBC, Hammond will announce regulatory changes on Wednesday that will allow the testing of driverless cars on UK roads:

Chancellor Philip Hammond told the BBC the objective was to have “fully driverless cars” without a safety attendant on board in use by 2021.

“Some would say that’s a bold move, but we have to embrace these technologies if we want the UK to lead the next industrial revolution,” he said.

Some might indeed say that’s a bold move. Others might point out that Google’s driverless car company Waymo is due to launch a fully driverless taxi service in a matter of months.

And there’s some money to go with the regulatory changes. Hammond is expected to reveal around £1bn of spending on various tech initiatives, including “£75m for artificial intelligence”. For context, that’s £30m less than DeepMind, the London-based but Google-owned AI pioneer, spent on staff costs in 2016.

Every little helps!