This paper presents ThinkTank, a comprehensive and scalable framework designed to transform specialized AI agent systems into versatile collaborative intelligence platforms capable of supporting complex problem-solving across diverse domains. ThinkTank systematically generalizes agent roles, meeting structures, and knowledge integration mechanisms by adapting proven scientific collaboration methodologies. Through role abstraction, generalization of meeting types for iterative collaboration, and the integration of Retrieval-Augmented Generation with advanced knowledge storage, the framework facilitates expertise creation and robust knowledge sharing. ThinkTank enables organizations to leverage collaborative AI for knowledge-intensive tasks while ensuring data privacy and security through local deployment, utilizing frameworks like Ollama with models such as Llama3.1. The ThinkTank framework is designed to deliver significant advantages in cost-effectiveness, data security, scalability, and competitive positioning compared to cloud-based alternatives, establishing it as a universal platform for AI-driven collaborative problem-solving. The ThinkTank code is available at https://github.com/taugroup/ThinkTank

To enforce a strict licensing model, the UK would also need to restrict access to models that have been trained on such content, which could include US-owned AI systems. With the Trump administration signalling it will not pursue strict AI regulations and China pursuing AI growth at "breakneck speed", the UK could weaken its economic and national security interests by lagging in the AI race, said TBI. "If the UK imposes laws that are too strict, it risks falling behind in the AI-driven economy and weakening its capacity to protect national security interests," said TBI. The report said arguing that commercial AI models cannot be trained on content from the open web was close to saying knowledge workers – a broad category of professionals ranging from lawyers to researchers – cannot profit from insights they get when reading the same content. Rather than fighting to uphold outdated regulations, said TBI, rights holders and policymakers should help build a future where creativity is valued alongside AI innovation. Fernando Garibay, a record producer who has worked with artists including Lady Gaga and U2, said history has been dotted with "end-of-time claims" related to technological breakthroughs, from the printing press to music streaming.

Tech companies are putting pressure on the UK government to encourage an AI datacentre boom in remote areas of Great Britain by offering some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe. A report paid for by the tech companies Amazon and OpenAI has called on ministers to overhaul the UK's electricity market by splitting it into different zones so that prices become more expensive in areas where power is in short supply, and cheaper in those where it is ample. This market arrangement, known as zonal pricing, would make areas such as Scotland a hotspot for AI datacentres – which use vast amounts of electricity – because of an abundance of windfarms and low population density, according to the report by the Social Market Foundation (SMF) thinktank. Keir Starmer said last month that artificial intelligence would be "mainlined into the veins" of the nation after putting in place a sweeping action plan to make the UK a world leader in the technology. However, the plans to host datacentres have attracted some scepticism, in part because the UK has some of the highest industrial electricity prices in the world and is pressing targets to virtually eliminate fossil fuels from the power system by the end of the decade.

Artificial intelligence could displace between 1m and 3m private sector jobs in the UK, though the ultimate rise in unemployment will be in the low hundreds of thousands as growth in the technology also creates new roles, according to Tony Blair's thinktank. Between 60,000 and 275,000 jobs will be displaced every year over a couple of decades at the peak of the disruption, estimates from the Tony Blair Institute (TBI) suggest. It described the figure as "relatively modest" given the average number of job losses in the UK has run at about 450,000 a year over the past decade. More than 33 million people are employed in the UK. AI, a technology that can be loosely defined as computer systems performing tasks that typically require human intelligence, has shot up the political agenda after the emergence of the ChatGPT chatbot and other breakthroughs in the field.

Almost two-thirds of British jobs could be "enhanced" with AI, Google has claimed, with only a tiny proportion at risk of being "phased out" entirely. Instead of worrying about job losses caused by AI, the focus needed to be on making sure the millions of Britons who could work in smarter and faster ways with AI tech got the support to use it, the company said. "Fewer than 50% of people are actually taking advantage of these tools in their working life on a day to day basis," said Debbie Weinstein, managing director of Google UK. "The uptake of these tools is very low, and I think the only way we're going to unlock the potential of what AI can do is actually by getting people to use them, and to feel confident and capable about them." According to research from the thinktank Public First, commissioned by Google, 61% of British jobs will be "radically" transformed by AI, with just 31% "insulated" from the technology – defined as having fewer than a quarter of their workplace tasks with the potential to be automated. Those insulated jobs would overwhelmingly be in social care, transport, accommodation and food services, where complex and varied physical tasks were achievable only by human workers, Public First said.

The UK needs a system for recording misuse and malfunctions in artificial intelligence or ministers risk being unaware of alarming incidents involving the technology, according to a report. The next government should create a system for logging incidents involving AI in public services and should consider building a central hub for collating AI-related episodes across the UK, said the Centre for Long-Term Resilience (CLTR), a thinktank. CLTR, which focuses on government responses to unforeseen crises and extreme risks, said an incident reporting regime such as the system operated by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch (AAIB) was vital for using the technology successfully. The report cites 10,000 AI "safety incidents" recorded by news outlets since 2014, listed in a database compiled by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, an international research body. Examples logged on the OECD's AI safety incident monitor include a deepfake of the Labour leader, Keir Starmer, purportedly being abusive to party staff, Google's Gemini model portraying German second world war soldiers as people of colour, incidents involving self-driving cars and a man who planned to assassinate the late queen drawing encouragement from a chatbot.

Almost 8 million UK jobs could be lost to artificial intelligence in a "jobs apocalypse", according to a report warning that women, younger workers and those on lower wages are at most risk from automation. The Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) said that entry level, part-time and administrative jobs were most exposed to being replaced by AI under a "worst-case scenario" for the rollout of new technologies in the next three to five years. The thinktank warned that the UK was facing a "sliding doors" moment as growing numbers of companies adopt generative AI technologies – which can read and create text, data and software code – to automate everyday workplace tasks. The report said this first wave of AI adoption was already putting jobs at risk as growing numbers of companies introduce the technology. However, a second wave could lead to the automation of more jobs amid rapid advances in AI.

The politics of AI regulation became a little clearer this weekend, after an influential Labour thinktank laid out its framework for how the party should approach the topic in its manifesto. The policy paper, produced by the centre-left Labour Together thinktank, proposes a legal ban on dedicated nudification tools that allow users to generate explicit content by uploading images of real people. It would also create an obligation for developers of general-purpose AI tools and web hosting companies to take reasonable steps to ensure they are not involved in the production of such images, or other harmful deepfakes. Labour Together's suggestions aren't party policy yet, but they point at the sort of issues Westminster wonks think a campaign can be built on. For the last few decades, technology has been a curiously apolitical realm in the UK, with all parties agreeing on the vague idea that it's important to support British technology as a driver of growth and soft power, and little active campaigning beyond that.

The scientist behind a landmark letter calling for a pause in developing powerful artificial intelligence systems have said tech executives did not halt their work because they are locked in a "race to the bottom". Despite support from more than 30,000 signatories, including Elon Musk and the Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, the document failed to secure a hiatus in developing the most ambitious systems. Speaking to the Guardian six months on, Tegmark said he had not expected the letter to stop tech companies working towards AI models more powerful than GPT-4, the large language model that powers ChatGPT, because competition has become so intense. "I felt that privately a lot of corporate leaders I talked to wanted [a pause] but they were trapped in this race to the bottom against each other. So no company can pause alone," he said.

Keir Starmer should pledge £11bn towards building "BritGPT" and a national artificial intelligence (AI) cloud in the next Labour manifesto or risk the UK falling ever further into dependence on American tech companies, an affiliated thinktank has said. Labour for the Long Term, which campaigns within the party for it to adopt "long-termist" policies that mitigate dangers such as pandemics, climate breakdown, and AI extinction, argues in a report that the £1bn pledged by the government in the 2023 budget is not enough to protect Britain's future independence. The report calls for the creation of BritGPT, a homemade system with a remit to focus on market failures rather than simply trying to compete with Silicon Valley to build the biggest models. "Private profit-seeking companies aren't going to invest enough in'AI for good' or AI safety, so the UK government should step in to correct this market failure and provide more public goods – such as medical research, clean energy research, and AI safety research," it said. They suggested some of the budget could even come out of Labour's £28bn annual "climate investment pledge" as a result.