Staff at Britain’s AI institute in open revolt

LONDON — Staff at the U.K.’s prestigious artificial intelligence institute are up in arms about the way it is being run — and have urged its board to step in and save it from itself.

A letter signed by 93 employees of the Alan Turing Institute — which is largely funded by the U.K. government and serves as Britain’s national institute for AI and data science — expresses no confidence in the body’s executive leadership team (ELT) and calls on the institute’s board to “urgently intervene.”

The missive, sent in early December, warns that employee concerns on a host of issues — including the institute’s sense of direction, progress on gender diversity, and a major redundancy round — have been “ignored, minimized or misdirected.” Immediate action is needed, it continues, to avoid “jeopardizing our funding base and long term financial health.”

The research institute — set up in 2015 with cash from central government — is supposed to lead the country’s research ecosystem on AI and data science.

But it has attracted strong criticism from other organizations in the space, including the influential Tony Blair Institute think tank, over a perceived failure to keep the U.K. abreast of the seismic developments in generative AI that have taken place in recent years.

The letter — seen by POLITICO — meanwhile argues that there has been “catastrophic decline in trust in leadership, particularly at senior levels. Staff morale and wellbeing has also become a critical concern, with rising levels of stress and burnout across teams.” 

“The growing sense of disengagement and frustration among staff is directly linked to a lack of accountability and transparency – which are supposedly Turing values – and poor decision making by ELT.” 

The institute launched an internal review after staff criticized a lack of gender diversity in its top ranks.

The findings of that exercise, also seen by POLITICO, state that a lack of transparency, perceived biases, and inadequate support systems had had a significant impact on staff morale. It found widespread concern among staff about the quality of leadership at the institute.

A spokesperson for the institute said in a statement: “As part of implementing our strategy, the Turing is engaged in a transformation programme which includes formal consultation with staff which is currently on-going.

“At the heart of the new strategy is a move away from large numbers of individual projects, to pursuing impact at scale through a focussed portfolio of challenge-led science and innovation.

“We very much understand this is a difficult and uncertain time and we’re strongly committed to a consultative process and to supporting staff through this period of change.”

‘Rudderless’

A review of the Turing Institute conducted by Britain’s science research funding agency last year highlighted governance issues at the organization. An open letter signed by more than 180 staff members denounced the lack of gender diversity across leadership roles following the appointment of four new research directors in February, all of whom were men. 

Two of those four, Marc Deisenroth and Aldo Faisal, have now left the organization. 

The institute meanwhile launched a consultation process that could lead to redundancies among its 440 staff.

“The scientific leadership … has too often been left rudderless; left behind as both the community and the cutting edge has moved ahead without us, while we are publicly and privately criticised for being behind the curve,” wrote the letter’s authors.

“Not only are we at risk of missing an opportunity to play a key role in the landscape, we are more concerningly being led into a situation where the viability of the Institute is under question.” 

‘A new phase’

Despite the growing criticism, the Turing Institute had its funding renewed by the then-Conservative government at the beginning of the year.

It was promised £100 million over five years as long as it made changes, including overhauling its governance structures, setting out a clear business plan, and better defining its relationships with the wider research ecosystem.

“We are shaping a new phase for the Turing in line with an ambitious strategy set by our Board and endorsed by our core funder,” Jean Innes, CEO of the institute said in an emailed statement Wednesday.

“This will see us collaborating with partners across the ecosystem to use data science and AI to deliver real world impact on issues like climate and environmental change, improving health and protecting people from defence and security threats.”