The head of the Alan Turing Institute assigns from the United Kingdom resigning | Artificial Intelligence (AI)
The director general of the main artificial intelligence agency of the United Kingdom takes off after a staff revolt and the government called for a strategic overhaul.
Jean Innes has managed Alan Turing Institute since 2023, but his position has been under pressure in the midst of general dissatisfaction within the organization and a request for its largest funder, the British government, for a change of management.
ATI said research was already underway for a replacement of Innes, which held high -level positions in the public service and technology industry before its appointment.
Government sources have underlined a letter sent by the secretary to technology, Peter Kyle, to the presidency of the ATI in July which demanded a strategic change and indicated a need for new leadership.
In the letter, Kyle said that the Institute should focus on defense and national security and urged “special attention” to the implementation of a management team for such a decision.
Innes said Thursday: “It was a great honor to direct the National Institute of the United Kingdom for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence, the implementation of a new strategy and the supervision of an important organizational transformation. With this conclusive work, and a new chapter that begins for the Institute, it is the right time for a new leadership and I am delighted with what it will realize.”
The ATI has been assaulted by internal conflicts since last year while the staff protests against changes, culminating in a group of employees fileing a complaint against the denouncators with the charity last month. Citing references to funding in Kyle’s letter, they warned that 100 million pounds of government support could be withdrawn, which “could lead to the collapse of the institute”.
The Institute, which employs 440 people, had undergone a transformation program before Kyle’s intervention, labeled Turing 2.0, in which it would focus on three key areas: health, environment and defense and security. The overhaul prompted staff upheavals, employees warning the council last year that the credibility of the ATI was “seriously in danger”.
A redundancy process is also underway at the Institute, which recently informed the fifty staff members that their employment was in danger. The ATI has abandoned online security projects, fighting the housing crisis and reducing health inequalities.
The ATI, named after the British mathematician, widely considered as the father of modern IT, was founded in 2015 as the National Institute for Data Science before adding the AI to it in 2017.
Its objectives understand “to advance world class research and apply it to national and global challenges”, as well as to lead to an “enlightened public conversation” on AI. Its five founding British universities were Cambridge, Oxford, Edinburgh, University College in London and Warwick, with its research work, in particular by teaming up with the Met Office to improve weather forecasts, create cardiac “digital twins” to study heart disease and improve air traffic control.
