Skills and the City

Happy Thursday,

I was busy cake-baking yesterday but thankfully Alys Key was at the opening of Salesforce's new AI centre in London for us. It is meant to help UK firms with adoption and training. The company's execs said this, rather than capital investment in data centres, is where the job opportunities lie.

Happening Today 📆

Start with a ban: MPs on the Education Committee are calling for a ban on social media for children, in a report published this morning. They want it alongside curbs on addictive design features for under 18s.

Love, Hate: Young people the Ada Lovelace Institute interviewed are also encouraging age-gating across social media, gaming platforms, chatbots and AI agents. They spoke to 49 young people across the UK for a report out today called ‘I love it, but I hate it’ who described widespread exposure to harmful content and online abuse.

And if you want a really depressing read... Ofcom has today published a study into children's online experiences, finding the majority of children under two use screens, teenagers spend up to two days a week online, and "the offline world plays a diminishing role".

A different type of ban: Milton Keynes MP Emily Darlington has a debate in Parliament at 1:30pm about the censorship of women's health terms online. She's going to be reading out words which have been taken down by social media companies. The Labour MP will also meet with The Eve Appeal, a gynaecological cancer charity, who will hand her a letter that they have written to Meta.

Tune in: Responsible AI holds a webinar at 3pm on AI in public services with academics to talk about emerging research.