Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey said the widespread adoption of AI is likely to displace workers from existing roles, drawing parallels with the labour disruption caused by the Industrial Revolution.
He emphasised that while AI can boost productivity and economic growth, the UK must invest in training and education to help workers transition into jobs that are AI-enabled.
Bailey expressed particular concern about the impact on younger and inexperienced workers, warning that AI may reduce entry-level opportunities in sectors such as law, accountancy and administration. He noted that firms may hire fewer junior staff as AI systems replace routine data and document analysis.
Despite these risks, Bailey described AI as a potential driver of future UK growth, although he cautioned that productivity gains may take time to materialise.
He also stated that the Bank of England is experimenting with AI internally while monitoring concerns about a potential AI market bubble and the risks of a sharp valuation correction.
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Britain plans to banAI-nudification apps that digitally remove clothing from images. Creating or supplying these tools would become illegal under new proposals.
The offence would build on existing UK laws covering non-consensual sexual deepfakes and intimate image abuse. Technology Secretary Liz Kendall said developers and distributors would face harsh penalties.
Experts warn that nudification apps cause serious harm, mainly when used to create child sexual abuse material. Children’s Commissioner Dame Rachel de Souza has called for a total ban on the technology.
Child protection charities welcomed the move but want more decisive action from tech firms. The government said it would work with companies to stop children from creating or sharing nude images.
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The UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office was hacked in October, according to minister Chris Bryant. Officials say there is a low risk to any individual from the breach.
Reports suggest that a Chinese group, Storm 1849, may have been involved, but Bryant cautioned that the perpetrator has not been confirmed. Tens of thousands of visa details could have been targeted, though the exact scope remains unclear.
The attack shares similarities with a 2024 campaign called ArcaneDoor, linked to state-sponsored actors. Cybersecurity experts warn that the incidents may be connected and highlight risks of large-scale data targeting.
Officials have quickly closed the vulnerability and continue to investigate the matter. Bryant emphasised that speculation is unhelpful and said the investigation could take some time to identify the responsible party.
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For the first time, the UK has published a detailed, evidence-based assessment of frontier AI capabilities. The Frontier AI Trends Report draws on two years of structured testing across areas including cybersecurity, software engineering, chemistry, and biology.
The findings show rapid progress in technical performance. Success rates on apprentice-level cyber tasks rose from under 9% in 2023 to around 50% in 2025, while models also completed expert-level cyber challenges previously requiring a decade of experience.
Safeguards designed to limit misuse are also improving, according to the report. Red-team testing found that the time required to identify universal jailbreaks increased from minutes to several hours between model generations, representing an estimated forty-fold improvement in resistance.
The analysis highlights advances beyond cybersecurity. AI systems now complete hour-long software engineering tasks more than 40% of the time, while biology and chemistry models outperform PhD-level researchers in controlled knowledge tests and support non-experts in laboratory-style workflows.
While the report avoids policy recommendations, UK officials say it strengthens transparency around advanced AI systems. The government plans to continue investing in evaluation science through the AI Security Institute, supporting independent testing and international collaboration.
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Former UK chancellor George Osborne has joined OpenAI in a London-based role. He will lead the OpenAI for Countries programme focused on government partnerships.
The initiative aims to help governments build AI capacity and ensure systems reflect democratic values. OpenAI says more than 50 countries are already involved.
Osborne will work on developing AI infrastructure, boosting AI literacy and improving public services. The role follows discussions with OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman.
His appointment comes as UK-US tech talks face setbacks and investment in AI accelerates. Against this backdrop, financial authorities have warned of risks linked to the sector’s rapid growth.
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The UK government has formed a Women in Tech taskforce to help more women enter, remain and lead across the technology sector. Technology secretary Liz Kendall will guide the group alongside industry figures determined to narrow long-standing representation gaps highlighted by recent BCS data.
Members include Anne-Marie Imafidon, Allison Kirkby and Francesca Carlesi, who will advise ministers on boosting diversity and supporting economic growth. Leaders stress that better representation enables more inclusive decision-making and encourages technology built with wider perspectives in mind.
The taskforce plans to address barriers affecting women’s progression, ranging from career access to investment opportunities. Organisations such as techUK and the Royal Academy of Engineering argue that gender imbalance limits innovation, particularly as the UK pursues ambitious AI goals.
UK officials expect working groups to develop proposals over the coming months, focusing on practical steps that broaden the talent pool. Advocates say the initiative arrives at a crucial moment as emerging technologies reshape employment and demand more inclusive leadership.
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The third UK-EU Cyber Dialogue was held in Brussels on 9 and 10 December 2025, bringing together senior officials under the UK-EU Trade and Cooperation Agreement to strengthen cooperation on cybersecurity and digital resilience.
The meeting was co-chaired by Andrew Whittaker from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office and Irfan Hemani from the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, alongside EU representatives from the European External Action Service and the European Commission.
Officials from Europol and ENISA also participated, reinforcing operational and regulatory coordination rather than fragmented policy approaches.
Discussions covered cyber legislation, deterrence strategies, countering cybercrime, incident response and cyber capacity development, with an emphasis on maintaining strong security standards while reducing unnecessary compliance burdens on industry.
Both sides confirmed that the next UK-EU Cyber Dialogue will take place in London in 2026.
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Libraries Connected, supported by a £310,400 grant from the UK Government’s Digital Inclusion Innovation Fund administered by the Department for Science, Industry and Technology (DSIT), is launching Innovating in Trusted Spaces: Libraries Advancing the Digital Inclusion Action Plan.
The programme will run from November 2025 to March 2026 across 121 library branches in Newcastle, Northumberland, Nottingham City and Nottinghamshire, targeting older people, low-income families and individuals with disabilities to ensure they are not left behind amid rapid digital and AI-driven change.
Public libraries are already a leading provider of free internet access and basic digital skills support, offering tens of thousands of public computers and learning opportunities each year. However, only around 27 percent of UK adults currently feel confident in recognising AI-generated content online, underscoring the need for improved digital and media literacy.
The project will create and test a new digital inclusion guide for library staff, focusing on the benefits and risks of AI tools, misinformation and emerging technologies, as well as building a national network of practice for sharing insights.
Partners in the programme include Good Things Foundation and WSA Community, which will help co-design materials and evaluate the initiative’s impact to inform future digital inclusion efforts across communities.
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Local councillors have approved Google’s plans to build a large data centre campus at North Weald Airfield near Harlow, marking a major expansion of the company’s UK digital infrastructure.
The development is expected to create up to 780 local jobs, including approximately 200 direct roles, and contribute an estimated £79 million annually to the local economy and £319 million nationally.
The project involves demolishing existing buildings at the former RAF airfield and constructing two data centre facilities alongside offices, roads and parking.
While UK councillors largely welcomed the investment, the council acknowledged potential downsides, including a reduction in stalls at the long-running North Weald Market and pending Section 106 contributions to mitigate infrastructure impacts, such as upgrades to nearby transport links.
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Models ranging from 600 million to 13 billion parameters (such as Pythia) were affected, highlighting the scale-independent nature of the weakness. A planted phrase such as ‘sudo’ caused output collapse, raising concerns about targeted disruption and the ease of manipulating widely trained systems.
Security specialists note that denial-of-service effects are worrying, yet deceptive outputs pose far greater risk. Prior studies already demonstrated that medical and safety-critical models can be destabilised by tiny quantities of misleading data, heightening the urgency for robust dataset controls.
Researchers warn that open ecosystems and scraped corpora make silent data poisoning increasingly feasible. Developers are urged to adopt stronger provenance checks and continuous auditing, as reliance on LLMs continues to expand for AI purposes across technical and everyday applications.
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