The Bletchley Effect

This is a piece reflecting on the day’s Historic events on the AI Safety Summit Fringe and the way in which the Summit has been reported.? My notes on the content of the two Fringe events I was lucky enough to attend will be posted on here and shared on DEF's X (formerly Twitter) channel in the morning.

AI drew significant mainstream UK media coverage today and overseas too, for example, the Straits Times Press Singapore covered the attendance of their PM at Bletchley.?

The Summit made an appearance on BBC News when Christian Fraser devoted 20 minutes to the goings on in Bletchley Park whilst publicising a new 20 minute segment every Thursday evening called “Decoding AI”.?A significant development in terms of legacy from Bletchley.

Meanwhile the BBC's News at Ten had Chris Mason illustrating what AI meant by generating bucolic scenes of flower beds in front of Parliament and a river coursing its way past Abraham Lincoln and Nelson Mandela in Parliament Square.? After that we were treated to Sophie Raworth being driven around London by an AI autonomously driven car courtesy of Wayve promising these cars will be on our streets as soon as 2025! Alex Glassbrook

Not to be outdone the BBC's Question Time gave significant airtime to the issues raised by the Bletchley Park Summit.

This is how to raise public awareness of modern technology.? That and having Elon Musk turn up to herald the End of Everything at Bletchley Park and, just to make sure, again in Lancaster House.? Our Rishi Sunak was unmoved by all this and said how confident he was that the Great Convulsion that is coming to the jobs market could be overcome by education and some serious up-skilling – you bet.? Yet, we cannot all be masters.

Congratulations to the PM, and team!, for putting this together in what we were told was just 2 months.? Congratulations also to Milltown Partners for delivering the Fringe events.? Quite some delivery.?

In London 24 Fringe events took place venues which included Chatham House , the Royal Society, the The British Library and the Octagon Room at Queen Mary University of London . These included an event bringing together female founders in AI entitled “Women in AI”.? An important event, as were they all. Tricia Blatherwick ? ?

Outside London the Fringe comprised 18 events at 18 different locations in cities such as Edinburgh, Oxford, Manchester, Lincoln and Milton Keynes.?

The full Fringe event listing is here: https://aifringe.org/events

I could only find time to attend two but they were enormously worthwhile.? Starting this morning at Queen Mary and finishing with the afternoon at the Knowledge Centre of the British Library.

What struck me were the numbers attending.? I estimate ca 200 at Queen Mary and 250 at the British Library.? That’s almost 450 attendees in one day at just two of 42 Fringe events. Nor should we overlook the global audience online at these events. Attendance at the Fringe has been overlooked by some commentators who criticise the Bletchley Park Summit for, it was suggested, a low attendance of only 120 delegates.? I suspect the next Summit will need a bigger room!

Good to meet friends and make new connections, especially looking forward to catching up with Yinghan Hu .

The need to raise awareness of change is something that is often raised as integral to making change happen.? The Bletchley Effect is certainly doing that.

Posts on the content of the events I attended will appear tomorrow.

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