We had some very exciting news of our own this week. From October 2024, we will bring Solid - an open standard developed to give individuals and organisations greater control over their data - into our data stewardship activities. The Solid project, protocol, and community will become part of our wider portfolio to promote ethical data sharing and build a more transparent, secure, and user-centric data ecosystem. By integrating Solid into our activities, we will further explore models of user-centric data governance that give individuals greater agency over how their data is used. This approach reflects our long-held belief that ethical data use benefits individuals, society and the economy. Solid enables this vision by giving users fine-grained control over their data, ensuring it will be shared securely and responsibly.
Elsewhere this week, social media companies that fail to keep children safe on their platforms will face punishment, the communications watchdog Ofcom has said. The tech giants could face fines from the regulator for failing to comply with the new Online Safety Act, which comes into force early next year. Companies will have three months to carry out risk assessments and make the relevant changes from when the guidance is finalised. Dame Melanie Dawes, chief executive of Ofcom, said it was the responsibility of the companies - not parents or children - to make sure people are safe online.
Google has announced a deal to buy nuclear energy to generate the energy needed to power the rise in artificial intelligence. The tech giant has ordered six or seven ‘small nuclear reactors’ from Kairos Power in California in a deal they hope will provide a low-carbon solution to run their datacentres. Last month, Microsoft agreed a deal to take energy from Three Mile Island, activating the plant for the first time in five years, while Amazon bought a datacentre powered by nuclear energy back in March.
We’ve got some great events coming up over the next few weeks. Our incredibly popular series of data-centric AI webinars continues on 19 November 16:00-17:00 GMT with our Executive Chair and Co-founder Sir Nigel Shadbolt in conversation with our Director of Research Elena Simperl. They’ll be discussing the role that data plays in training and refining generative AI systems, so book your tickets now. Tickets are also available for our event exploring data empowerment on 21 November, and for Richard Pope and Emer Coleman’s discussion of Richard's new book Platformland on 23 October. And if you’re interested, we’ve also just published a taxonomy of the data involved in developing, using and monitoring foundation AI models and systems, so take a look.
And finally, if a dodo could talk, what would it say? Apart from ‘Please don’t kill me, I’m the only one left’? Well now you can find out, and of course, it’s thanks to AI. The University of Cambridge’s Museum of Zoology has given visitors a chance to have two-way chats with 13 specimens it has on display, including the aforementioned dodo, a narwhal (plenty of those anyway), a blue fin whale skeleton (possibly not the chattiest) and a red panda (super cute). Visitors can scan a QR near each exhibit to start a conversation with each creature. The experiment starts next week and lasts for a month. Wonder when they’ll tell visitors they’re a bit bored of the selfies.
Until next time…
David and the Comms team
