Taking the high road
Notes from the "least boring" panel.
Good morning,
Rather than another report from Labour Party Conference, today's main piece looks at practical applications of AI in solving a policy challenge. This was the task Multiverse gave apprentices in a hackathon in Liverpool and Amelia Isaacs was there to see the results and listen to the new future of work minister.
The UK's AI ambitions mean little if the sectors that matter most can't take part. HMRC transaction data, NHS patient records, MoD intelligence systems — all sit in on-premises infrastructure, beyond the reach of frontier models. VAST DataEnclave changes that.
It brings leading AI models to sensitive data wherever it lives, using hardware that guarantees no party simply has to trust another. Every action is cryptographically verified and audit-trailed.
For sectors such as financial services, healthcare and government, that creates a path towards using more valuable data with AI while maintaining stronger control over security, sovereignty and intellectual property.
Happening Today 📆
Self-regulation rules: President Donald Trump unveiled a "self-regulation" pact with AI bosses at a meeting at the White House on Tuesday. Companies remain responsible for safety testing but will work with independent auditors. Trump described the accord as "morally binding".
In Liverpool: Digital, Culture, Media and Sport Secretary Lisa Nandy gives her speech to Labour conference this morning. She'll be introduced by Georgia Harrison, a campaigner against image-based sexual abuse. Nandy warned yesterday that banning under-16s from social media platforms was only a "staging post", the Guardian reports. She will call for a "very active interventionist state, policing and regulating the online space so that people are safe.”
From now on: Platforms must deploy technology to block non-consensual intimate images or face financial penalties from today. Meanwhile, 106 MPs have written to bosses at Apple and Google to urgently introduce nudity-blocking technology on children's smartphones.
In today's edition:
🗑️ AI can fix fly-tipping in a day. Can government keep up?
🌏 Britain will push for global AI standards at the G20, but the AI minister says the UK has already effectively banned superintelligence.