UK government to launch AI tool to speed up public consultations
An AI tool has been used to review public responses to a government consultation for the first time and is now set to be rolled out more widely in an effort to save money and staff time.The tool, named “Consult”, was first used by the Scottish government when it was seeking perspectives on the regulation of non-surgical cosmetic procedures such as lip filler.The UK government said the tool analysed responses and was able to produce results identical to human officials, and will now be used to review responses from other consultations, while also being developed further.While reviewing more than 2,000 responses, Consult identified key themes, which were then checked and refined by experts in the Scottish government.The government built Consult to be among its new package of AI tools, nicknamed “Humphrey”, which they claim will “speed up work in Whitehall and cut back on consulting spending”.
They claim that, across the 500 consultations they run annually, the new tool will save the British taxpayer £20m a year and save up about 75,000 hours for government officials to focus on other work,Michael Rovatsos, a professor of artificial intelligence at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Informatics, said he believed that while the rewards of Consult could be great, the risks of biases influencing the AI shouldn’t be overlooked,“While in principle the idea is that a human will always be in the loop, in practice the reality is that a person will not always have that much time to check every time, and that is when the biases will creep in,”Rovatsos also said that “bad actors”, domestic and foreign, could influence the AI’s integrity through feeding it prompts,“You will have to invest in making sure that the systems are safe and robust and that will take money and time,” he said.
“I think that unlocking the benefits and avoiding the harm requires a lot more additional upfront investment and learning than what it might look like in the first instance.There’s a danger that ministers and civil servants might see this as a quick fix to save money, but doing this well is essential and hard.”The government claims that Consult will work 1,000 times faster than a human and will be 400 times cheaper, with its conclusions being “incredibly similar” to those reached by experts but in a fraction of the time.Speaking on the launch of Consult, the technology secretary, Peter Kyle, said Consult would save “millions” for taxpayers.“No one should be wasting time on something AI can do quicker and better, let alone wasting millions of taxpayer pounds on outsourcing such work to contractors.
“After demonstrating such promising results, Humphrey will help us cut the costs of governing and make it easier to collect and comprehensively review what experts and the public are telling us on a range of crucial issues.“The Scottish government has taken a bold first step.Very soon, I’ll be using Consult, within Humphrey, in my own department and others in Whitehall will be using it too – speeding up our work to deliver the plan for change.”There is no fixed date yet for Consult, which is still in its trial phase, being implemented in government work, but the belief is that it could be deployed in government offices by the end of 2025.
Bentley warns its car sales to US still frozen amid tariff cut confusion
The British luxury carmaker Bentley has said sales to the US remain frozen as customers wait for lower tariffs from the UK’s trade deal – with no sign yet of when the rates will start.The UK last week agreed a 10% tariff on 100,000 car exports to the US as part of a limited trade deal with Donald Trump. That would be significantly below the 25% extra levy imposed by the US on the rest of the world, but neither government has yet detailed how the deal will work in practice.Frank-Steffen Walliser, Bentley’s chief executive, said the wait for lower tariffs was “super-harming the business at the moment – nobody is moving”.Manufacturers still have no idea when the lower tariffs will be implemented or how the 100,000 cars allowed into the US at the lower tariff will be shared out among UK carmakers
M&S says some personal data was taken in cyber-attack
Marks & Spencer has revealed that some personal information relating to thousands of customers was taken in the cyber-attack that has crippled its online operation for more than three weeks.Since the retailer’s IT systems were hit by a ransomware attack over the Easter weekend, it has not been taking online orders, and the availability of some products in its stores has been affected after it took some of its systems offline in response.The company said on Tuesday that it now realised that some customer data had been accessed but this did not include usable payment or card details, or any account passwords. The Guardian understands the details taken are names, addresses and order histories.M&S said personal information had been accessed because of the “sophisticated nature of the incident”
US monthly inflation rate slows amid Trump tariffs
The pace of inflation slowed in April, the month that Donald Trump announced his sweeping “liberation day” tariffs on the US’s largest trading partners.The annual inflation rate was 2.3% in April, down from an annual rate of 2.4% March, according to a new inflation report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, hit an annual rate of 2
Thames Water finances were ‘hair raising’, chair tells MPs
The chair of Thames Water has admitted its finances were “hair raising”, as he said bosses were in line for “substantial” bonuses linked to an emergency £3bn loan.The UK’s biggest water company came within just five weeks of running out of money, Adrian Montague told MPs on Tuesday.“Thames in the last year has come very close to running out of money entirely,” he said. He added there were times when it only had weeks’ worth of cash left. “Running a £20bn corporation on five weeks’ liquidity, honestly, it’s hair raising
Gold fever makes a comeback as buyers and bankers recoil from uncertainty
New York’s famous Diamond District was teeming last week. But the subject on many minds in the city’s jewelry district was not diamonds but gold.Covid, Ukraine and now Donald Trump’s trade wars have all sparked new interest in gold – which can trace its history as a currency back to 600BC.On West 47th Street, gold trader Becky Algozhoeva at GT Findings was showing coins and ingots stamped with the Roman goddess Fortuna, also known as “Lady Fortuna”, to customers.“Regular people are thinking gold is the key
Nissan to shut seven factories, cutting 20,000 jobs worldwide
Nissan is to close seven factories with the loss of 20,000 jobs around the world, after a tumultuous year for the Japanese carmaker.As it slims down production, Nissan will make a further 11,000 job cuts, after 9,000 job losses announced in November, collectively reducing its workforce by 15%. The decision will affect staff and contractor jobs across manufacturing, sales and administration, as well as research and development.Nissan did not say which factories were due to shut. However, its factory at Sunderland in north-east England, the carmaker’s only factory in Europe and where it employs 6,000 people, is not thought to be a likely candidate for closure
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