May newsletter: Data centres and days off

Dear friends,

May might be a time of holidays and half-terms, but it also always seems to be one of the busiest months of the year. As everyone rushes to get things done in between long weekends and before the summer break, there are countless things to keep track of.

Let us be your guide to what’s hot – aside from the temperature in Britain – and what’s happening next.

Dispatches from the research coalface

The climate impact of data centres – AI and climate action are usually in conflict. However, building data centres in Britain can accelerate decarbonisation rather than undermine it.

Post Haste: Britain needs a thicker political layer – While it’s tempting to diagnose Westminster with a talent problem, Julia argued that Britain’s deeper problem is a lack of political capacity. We have built a large, complex, interventionist state without building a correspondingly thick political layer to direct it.

Post Haste: Make Oak Apple Day a bank holiday! – Alys proposed reviving an old tradition, and looked at why the economics of an extra day off are far from straightforward.

Is AI the new breadwinner? – Following on from his research about AI’s impact on the labour market, Pedro has penned a multi-part series diving into the nature of work and the barriers to full automation. The first instalment draws lessons from bread-making and Chartreuse to explore tacit knowledge, while the second looks at why work is organised into firms and what that tells us about the limitations of superhuman AI. Stay tuned for the conclusion, due to be published next week.

Policy changes and projects of note

Sandboxing - An upcoming Regulating for Growth Bill, confirmed in the King’s Speech, looks set to create new regulatory sandboxes for businesses to trial new technologies and applications. The idea is that, after rapid testing, reforms to regulation can be rolled out and the UK can keep pace with opportunities in AI and other emerging technologies. We have previously argued that fixing the regulatory state is vital for unleashing the potential of our most innovative organisations.

New powers on power – We welcomed news that the Chancellor will give Parliament authority to approve critical energy infrastructure and reduce the potential grounds for judicial review on these projects. Responding to the announcement, David said judicial reviews “have driven up the cost of building Britain’s energy infrastructure and delayed vital clean energy projects” and that the reforms tackle these rising costs.

• David appeared on BBC Radio 4’s The World Tonight to discuss the reforms to judicial review. Listen here (the segment starts just over 12 minutes in).

• Writing in The Telegraph, Julia and Pedro examined the theories behind the UK’s youth unemployment levels and found the rising cost of employing young people to be the most likely culprit.

• Pedro was a guest on Stay Human, a podcast from The Artificiality Institute, to talk about AI and the jobs market.

• His research on that topic was also cited in a TechRound round-up of the latest data about the labour market.

• We joined the many voices in City A.M. expressing disappointment at the blocking of an 867-home development on the site of a Peckham shopping centre.

Opportunities and happenings in the ecosystem. Let us know what else should appear here by emailing editor@britishprogress.org

• We are hiring! Apply now to be our new Head of Operations.

• If you want to get hands on with the Government’s flagship AI infrastructure initiative, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology is hiring a policy adviser for AI Growth Zones.

• Applications are open until the 1st of June for Roots of Progress’s blog-building intensive, a programme for writing essays about progress.

• In Development Magazine is hiring a full-time Managing Editor, who will work directly with Editor-in-Chief (and Centre for British Progress fellow!) Lauren Gilbert.

• The London AI Hub is hosting a showcase of companies from the British AI community on the 9th of June, in partnership with the Department for Business and Trade.

• Julia has just started Hard Times by Charles Dickens. She is hoping it will cure her of her utilitarian ways and prepare her for a post-AGI world.

• Ezra is currently reading Ramping Up Rights: An Unfinished History of British Disability Activism by Rachel Charlton-Dailey.

• Pedro is reading Brandon Sanderson’s Wind and Truth from the Stormlight Archive series. On audio, he’s listening to Russian classic Oblomov by Ivan Goncharov.

• On a friend’s recommendation, Kane has been reading The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why It Matters by Priya Parker.

• Alys is reading Down and Out in Paradise, an unauthorised biography of Anthony Bourdain, by Charles Leerhsen. Next up will be the much-hyped London Falling by Patrick Radden Keefe.

What else is on our minds and in our feeds: Against the gamification of school | Why everyone is feeling ‘whimsy’ | Strawberry bread | The Odd Lots podcast meets the founders of The Devonshire | Fake coffeehouses = fake discourse | A garden library