AI Setbacks in UK Welfare and Breakthroughs in Language Models

Explore the challenges faced by the UK government as AI prototypes for the welfare system are dropped, highlighting the complexities of integrating AI into public services. Meanwhile, Qwen AI's new models push the boundaries of language processing with unprecedented context lengths. Delve into the ethical and geopolitical dimensions of AI development, and discover how AI image generators are navigating the political landscape ahead of the U.S. elections. This episode offers a comprehensive look at the current state and future potential of AI technology.

Sources:
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2025/jan/27/ai-prototypes-uk-welfare-system-dropped
https://www.marktechpost.com/2025/01/26/qwen-ai-releases-qwen2-5-7b-instruct-1m-and-qwen2-5-14b-instruct-1m-allowing-deployment-with-context-length-up-to-1m-tokens/
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jan/26/ai-is-a-force-for-good-and-britain-needs-to-be-a-maker-of-ideas-not-a-mere-taker
https://apnews.com/article/midjourney-ai-imagegenerator-biden-trump-deepfakes-bc6c254ddb20e36c5e750b4570889ce1

Outline:
(00:00:00) Introduction
(00:00:41) AI prototypes for UK welfare system dropped as officials lament ‘false starts’
(00:03:51) Qwen AI Releases Qwen2.5-7B-Instruct-1M and Qwen2.5-14B-Instruct-1M: Allowing Deployment with Context Length up to 1M Tokens
(00:07:26) AI is a force for good – and Britain needs to be a maker of ideas, not a mere taker
(00:10:52) AI image-generator Midjourney blocks images of Biden, Trump