Test, convene, defend

Good morning and happy Ada Lovelace Day. 

Happening Today 📆

Make yourself comfy: MPs on the Business, Innovation, Science and Trade Committee have a bumper session on AI safety. It kicks off at 2pm with safety researchers including AISI’s former chief scientist Geoffrey Irving giving evidence. At 3pm it’s the turn of frontier company lobbyists with Anthropic’s Liam Booth-Smith, Tom Duff Gordon from OpenAI, Owen Larter from Google DeepMind and Meta's Rob Sherman. At 4pm, AISI director Henry de Zoete, Cabinet Office permanent secretary Cat Little and Alexandra Jones, director general at BIST answer MPs' questions. 

Also happening: The Lords’ Communications and Digital Committee hears from the Molly Rose Foundation, Internet Matters and Professor Sonia Livingstone on the impact of the Online Safety Act at 2:30pm. 

Little representation: Women make up just a fifth of tech workers in the UK, a report from BCS, The Chartered Institute for IT, out today finds. Pay and progression also lag with women in full-time tech jobs earning 10 percent less than their male counterparts. The Gender Diversity Report will be launched at an event in Parliament tonight.

A first: An AI-generated voice will be used to give a speech for the first time in Parliament today. Crossbench peer Jane Campbell, who has spinal muscular atrophy, will use ElevenLabs’ tool to speak words she has written for the second reading of the Health Bill.