British technology adviser whose influence has raised skeptics

Last year, as thousands of customers withdrew their deposits from Silicon Valley Bank, one of the largest banking operations in U.S. history, British venture capitalist Matt Clifford came calling.

He spent a frenzied weekend on the phone with UK ministers, explaining that Britain's smaller tech companies would not be able to afford the costs, and delivering a message from government to businesses to ease panic. When HSBC stepped up to buy the failed bank, businessmen had him to thank.

Since then, the 39-year-old has gained increasing powers across government, advising successive Tory and Labor administrations on technology policy.

But several media and technology executives told the Financial Times that the former McKinsey consultant, who founded a successful investment firm with offices around the world, had enormous influence over AI sector policy.

Skeptics argue that Clifford, who helped found the UK's AI Safety Institute and the AI ​​Safety Summit and led the new government's review of AI policy, has allowed the government to focus too narrowly on AI safety.

Although he was not elected, he has enormous power to shape policy, a British technology executive said.

Clifford, who studied history at Cambridge and computer statistics at MIT at the age of 25 and co-founded venture capital firm Entrepreneur First, is part of an influential group of government advisers who want the UK to play a leading role in AI safety.

But critics argue this is detrimental to other parts of the UK's AI industry.

One chief executive said his biggest concern was that the limited pool of advisers, including Clifford and AI Safetey Institute chairman Ian Hogarth, had not sufficiently challenged the government to focus on what it described as far-fetched threats, such as AI producing chemical weapons. said.

Several technology experts and media executives have argued that this could lead to more pedestrian risks from AI being overlooked, including bias and copyright infringement.

Former technology secretary Damian Collins said Clifford was clearly a man of enormous ability, but the balance of interests expressed and the way they were expressed were problematic, citing in particular the fierce debate surrounding copyright protection for publishers and media creators.

Clifford has advocated for relaxing copyright restrictions to allow AI companies to mine data, text and images to train their algorithms.

Meanwhile, Hermann Hauser, who helped found Amadeus Capital, a venture capital firm that co-founded chipmaker Arm, said policy discussions in the UK were dominated by risk and security, leaving the government missing out on potential. I said there is. Improve economic productivity.

One technology executive emphasized the importance of who listens to the government when setting AI policy. The problem here is a one-time task that cannot be reversed. That means educating politicians about what this technology can do.

One former government official points out that other policy areas, such as the ministers of clean power and national infrastructure, rely on advice from a variety of voices to provide strategic guidance.

They said it was very strange that so few people were asked to advise on AI policy in a country of 70 million people. [Clifford] We were able to proceed from running the Safety Summit to basically establishing the government's AI strategy.

Still, allies in the tech community argue that Clifford has found the right balance of speaking truth to power while supporting the government. They point out that many of his critics have vested interests of their own, including those in the media sector.

Clifford's involvement in government dates back to 2022, when he was selected to run the UK's new advanced research and invention agency. He was then appointed by former Chancellor Rishi Sunak in 2023 to set up the UK's Advanced AI Taskforce.

He was invited back later that year to lead the preparations for the first AI Safety Summit, where he was brought before investors and politicians to explain the risks of the nascent technology.

Dom Hallas, executive director of the Startup Coalition, who worked with Clifford, said most of the tech community is so technical that they come across as very nerdy people who politicians find difficult to understand.

Matt is warm and personable. He added that he understands how to figure out what's happening, find a solution and then give politicians credit.

When Sunak launched the British AI Safety Research Institute at the summit last November, Clifford was appointed as an advisory member.

Following Labor's election victory in July, the new skills secretary, Peter Kyle, asked Clifford to draw up an AI Opportunity Action Plan, which included recommendations on how to support the AI ​​sector in the UK. His report is due to be published next week.

After last year's summit, Clifford said AI appears to be safe and secure and he has high hopes for those who will build the technology to be widely adopted.

This has led some to argue that government policy is disproportionately benefiting companies active in the AI ​​safety market, including Pattern Labs and Advai.

Clifford is a small investor in Faculty Science, a company that has received more than 1 million contracts from government AISI for tests such as jailbreak prompts that guide AI chatbots to bypass guardrails.

He points out that he owns only a 0.02% stake in the faculty, which is less than 0.1% of assets, and had no influence in awarding the contract.

Clifford's extensive investment portfolio also includes Accurx, a healthcare technology company with a large NHS contract.

suggestion

Asked why he took on successive unpaid advisory roles, Clifford told the FT he was motivated by patriotism. I think the UK could be the best place in the world for technology. And I believe we really need private sector involvement. government.

Clifford added that the ideas about AI safety he championed were mainstream, and that far from being an AI destroyer, he devoted his career to helping people build AI companies. People close to Clifford said his action plan next week would demonstrate a more optimistic view of the potential of the AI ​​market, including expanding Britain's computing capacity.

A government spokesperson said that when industry experts are hired to support government work, they often bring with them external interests and we have strong processes in place to manage these appropriately.

The AI ​​Opportunity Action Plan will identify ways to accelerate the use of AI across the economy, and Matt said it had extensive engagement across AI startups, industry leaders, academia and civil society. They added that he had no role in determining government policy or awarding contracts and was appointed to present ideas.

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