The British government should offer tax breaks for businesses developing AI-powered products and services, or applying AI to their existing operations, to "unlock the UK's potential for augmented productivity", according to a new University of Cambridge report. Researchers argue that the UK currently lacks the computing capacity and capital required to build "generative" machine learning models fast enough to compete with US companies such as Google, Microsoft or Open AI. Instead, they call for a UK focus on leveraging these new AI systems for real-world applications – such as developing new diagnostic products and addressing the shortage of software engineers, for example – which could provide a major boost to the British economy. However, the researchers caution that without new legislation to ensure the UK has solid legal and ethical AI regulation, such plans could falter. British industries and the public may struggle to trust emerging AI platforms such as ChatGPT enough to invest time and money into skilling up. The policy report is a collaboration between Cambridge's Minderoo Centre for Technology and Democracy, Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and ai@cam: the University's flagship initiative on artificial intelligence.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS The British pound endured one of its biggest falls ever on Friday with some in the markets blaming trading robots or a fat-fingered typo for sending the currency down a precipitous 6 per cent in just a couple of minutes. For one of the world's major currencies, which is held as a reserve by countries around the world, that's a huge move, matched only by the pound's fall in the wake of dramatic events like Britain's June 23 vote to leave the European Union. Early Friday during Asian hours, the pound tumbled from 1.2600 to as low as 1.1789 in the space of two minutes, according to financial data provider FactSet. It recovered since that cliff-like fall to trade at 1.24 later Friday. Still, that's a level the currency hasn't seen since 1985 and way down on where it started the week, just below 1.30.