The Policy Leaders Fellowship (PLF) brings together the most senior members of CSaP's network of policy professionals to form a select group which meets, together with leading researchers from the University and other institutions, to share insights into the development of open and evidence-informed policy making. In line with the objectives of the Civil Service Reform Plan, it promotes the value of evidence, and progresses the move towards open policy making by opening up new ways of thinking and fresh perspectives; exercising “open minds” at the top of the policy making process; exploring new models for implementation; and creating engagement between policy, expertise and delivery.
The theme for the 31st PLF Roundtable discussion is “How should government respond to advances in AI technologies?” and has been chosen in collaboration with Susan Acland-Hood, Permanent Secretary at Department for Education and Neil Lawrence, DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge.
Background for topic: The last 12 months have brought seemingly rapid advances in AI capabilities, prompted by developments in a field called Large Language Models (LLMs). These models analyse, synthesise, and generate text; their ability to provide convincingly ‘human’ answers to user-posed questions has helped reinvigorate public interest in AI, while also prompting questions about how progress in AI is shaping research, policy, and practice.
- How is the field of AI developing? What do these recent advances tell us about progress in the field, including what limitations we’re close to fixing, and where we might see further progress in the near future?
- What infrastructure is needed to capitalise on the opportunities that follow? What are the cultural, strategic, and organisational interventions? What interfaces between people, AI, and policy are needed?
- How should government respond? Are there opportunities to make better use of these new AI capabilities in policy development and implementation? Are our AI and data policy foundations strong enough to accommodate growing AI capabilities?
Suggested readings:
Peter Ochieng suggests:
- ChatGPT is a blurry JPEG on the web article in the New Yorker
- Bing: I will not harm you unless you harm me first blog by Simon Willison
- The AI emotions dreamed up by chatGPT article on BBC
Jeff Dalton recommends:
- A video by OpenAI CEO Sam Altman on AI for the Next Era
- A report from Stanford on the Opportunities and Risks of Foundation Models
Maria Liakata recommends:
- A recent blog from the Alan Turing Instutute on Everything you need to know about ChatGPT
- NEW: Situating Search, an opinion piece on how to make search better and more transparent, providing thoughts on human-interaction with language models
- NEW: ChatGPT for Good? On Opportunities and Challenges of Large Language Models for Education
Neil Lawrence suggests:
A list of attendees can be found at the bottom of the day's schedule.
On the day:
- If arriving by train, please use the taxi rank at Cambridge station to travel to your first meeting location. Shared taxis will be available to take you back to the station in time for the 21:14 train to King's Cross.
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If you are taking a taxi from the train station to the lunch, please ask your driver to drop you at the King Street entrance to Sidney Sussex. A CSaP staff member will be available to guide you, but if you are early/late please call the Porters' Lodge 01223 338800 for pedestrian access through the sliding gate into the college.
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If you will be walking to Sidney Sussex, please use the main entrance on Sidney Street (across from Sainsbury's).
- If you are driving, limited parking is available at Trinity College but needs to be reserved in advance through CSaP.
- For any questions or issues on the day please contact Karri Aston 07720 837603
