Last month, the UK government announced the AI Skills Boost programme, promising “free AI training for all” and claiming that the courses will give people the skills needed to use artificial intelligence (AI) tools effectively. There are multiple reasons why we don’t agree.
US dependency over UK sovereignty
The “AI Skills Boost” is the free, badged “foundation” element of the government’s AI Skills Hub which was launched with great fanfare. There are 14 courses, exclusively from big US organisations, promoting and training on their platforms. The initiative increases dependency on US big tech – the opposite of the government’s recent conclusion, in its new AI opportunities action plan, to position the UK “to be an AI maker, not an AI taker”. It is also not clear how increasing UK workers’ reliance and usage of US big tech tools and platforms is intended to increase the UK’s homegrown AI talent.
In stark contrast to President Macron’s announcement last week that the French government will phase out dependency on US-based big tech, by using local providers to enhance digital sovereignty and privacy, technology secretary Liz Kendall’s speech was a lesson in contradictions.
Right after affirming that AI is “far too important a technology to depend entirely on other countries, especially in areas like defence, financial services and healthcare”, the secretary of state went on that the country’s strategy is to adopt existing technologies based overseas.
Microsoft, one of the founding partners for this initiative, has already admitted that “US authorities can compel access to data held by American cloud providers, regardless of where that data physically resides”, further acknowledging that the company will honour any data requests from the US state, regardless of where in the world the data is housed. Is this the sovereignty and privacy the UK government is trying to achieve?
Commercial content rather than quality skills provision
The AI Skills Hub indexes hundreds of AI-related courses. That means the hub, which cost £4.1m to build, is simply a bookmark or affiliate list of online courses and resources that are already available, with seemingly no quality control or oversight. The decision to award the contract to a “Big Four” commercial consultancy, PwC, rather than the proven national data, AI and digital skills providers who tendered, needs to be investigated.
The press releases focus on the “free” element of the training, but 60% of the courses are paid, even some of those which are marked as free, providing a deceptive funnel for paid commercial training providers.
We need to have greater national ambition than simply providing skills training. That the only substandard skills provision available is provided by those with commercial interests in controlling how people think about and use AI is a further insult
The package launched includes 595 courses, but only 14 have been benchmarked by Skills England, and there has been a critical outcry over the dangerously poor quality of many courses, some of which are 10 years’ old, don’t exist, or are poor quality AI slop.
An example of why this is so concerning is that many courses are not relevant to the UK. One of the courses promoted has already been shown to misrepresent the UK law on intellectual property, with the course creators later denying they had any contractual arrangement with the site and admitting that they were “not consulted before our materials were posted and linked from there”.
Warnings on the need for public AI literacy provision ignored
Aside from concerns over the standards, safety, sovereignty and cost of the content offered, there is a much bigger issue, which we have been warning about.
Currently, 84% of the UK public feel disenfranchised and excluded from AI decision-making, and mistrust key institutions, and 91% prioritise safe and fair usage of AI over economic gain and adoption speed.
In 2021, the UK’s AI Council provided a roadmap for developing the UK’s National AI Strategy. It advised on programmes of public and educational AI literacy beyond teaching technical or practical skills. This call has been repeated, especially in the wake of greater public exposure to generative AI since 2023, which now requires the public to understand not just how to prompt or code, but to use critical thinking to navigate a number of related implications of the technology.
In July 2025, we represented a number of specialists, education experts and public representatives, and wrote an open letter calling for investment in the UK’s AI capabilities beyond being passive users of US tools. Despite initial agreements to meet and discuss from the Department for Education and Department for Science, Innovation and Technology, the offer was rescinded.
Without comprehensive public understanding and sustained engagement, developing AI for public good and maintaining public trust will be a significant challenge. By investing in independent AI literacy initiatives that are accessible to all and not just aimed at onboarding uncritical users and consumers, the UK can help to ensure that its AI future is shaped with the UK public’s benefit at the heart.
Wasted opportunity to develop a beneficial UK approach to AI
We need to have greater national ambition than simply providing skills training. That the only substandard skills provision available is provided – at great public cost – by those with commercial interests in controlling how people think about and use AI is a further insult.
Indeed, Kendall’s claim that AI has the potential to add £400bn to the economy by 2030 is lifted from a report built by a sector consultancy that only focuses on the positive impact of Google technologies in the UK. Her announcement leaned heavily on claims such as “AI is now the engine of economic power and of hard power”, which come from a Silicon Valley playbook.
The focus on practical skills undermines the nation’s AI and tech sovereignty, harms the economy, with money leaving the nation to fund big tech. It entrenches political disenfranchisement, with decisions about AI framed as too complex for the general population to meaningfully engage with. It stands on fictitious narratives about inevitable big tech AI futures, in which public voice and public good are irrelevant.
If you wish to sign a second version of the open letter, which we are currently drafting, or to submit a critical AI literacy resource to We and AI’s resource hub, contact us here.
This article is co-authored by:
Tania Duarte, founder, We and AI
Bruna Martins, director at Tecer Digital
Dr. Elinor Carmi, senior lecturer in data politics and social justice, City St. George’s University of London
Dr. Mark Wong, head of social and urban policy, University of Glasgow
Dr Susan Oman, senior Lecturer, data, AI & society, The University of Sheffield
Ismael Kherroubi Garcia, founder & CEO, Kairoi
Cinzia Pusceddu, senior fellow of the Higher Education Academy, independent researcher
Dylan Orchard, postgraduate researcher, King’s College London
Tim Davies, director of research & practice, Connected by Data
Steph Wright, co-founder & managing director, Our AI Collective
The snow is melting, the days are getting longer, and I can almost smell the springtime ahead. Soon, we’ll be cruising around town on ebikes and electric scooters instead of burning fossil fuels. For now, the weather hasn’t quite caught up, which is great for markdowns. Many of the best electric scooters are still seeing significant discounts. If you’ve been thinking about buying one, now’s the best time: prices are low, and sunny commuting days are just ahead.
Gear editor Julian Chokkattu has spent five years testing more than 45 electric scooters. These are his top picks that are also on sale right now.
Apollo Go for $849 ($450 Off)
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
This is Gear editor Julian Chokkattu’s favorite scooter. The riding experience is powerful and smooth, thanks to its dual 350-watt motors and solid front and rear suspensions. The speed maxes out at 28 miles per hour (mph), which doesn’t make it the fastest scooter on the market, but it has a good range. (Chokkattu is a very tall man and was able to travel 15 miles on a single charge at 15 mph.) Other Apollo features he appreciates: turn signals, a dot display, a bell, along with a headlight and an LED strip for extra visibility.
Apollo Phantom 2.0 for $2099 ($900 Off)
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
Photograph: Julian Chokkattu
The Apollo Phantom 2.0 maxes out at 44 mph, with plenty of power from its dual 1,750-watt motors. It’s a gorgeous scooter, designed with 11-inch self-healing tubeless tires and a dual-spring suspension system for a smooth riding experience. But with great power comes great weight. At 102 pounds, the Phantom 2.0 is the heaviest electric scooter Chokkattu has tested, so I would only recommend this purchase if you don’t live in a walkup and/or have a garage.
More Discounted Electric Scooters
Segway
Max G3
This is the best commuter scooter, with more power and range than the Apollo Go and a fast 3.5-hour recharge time.
Segway
Ninebot F3 Electric Scooter
The Segway F3 is designed with turn signals, a bell, a bright display, and a feature-rich app experience.
Niu KQi 300X
This is the best all-terrain scooter, with reliable suspension, dual disc brakes, and thick 10.5-inch tubeless tires.
Segway
E2 Pro
This is the best budget scooter, designed with a decent 350-watt motor, a max speed of 15 mph, a front drum brake, and a rear electronic brake.
A few months ago, a family came into Pasadena Cyclery in Pasadena, California, for a repair on what they thought was their teenager’s e-bike. “I can’t fix that here,’ Daniel Purnell, a store manager and technician, remembers telling them. “That’s a motorcycle.” The mother got upset. She didn’t realize that what she thought was an e-bike could go much faster, perhaps up to 55 miles per hour.
“There’s definitely an education problem,” Purnell says. In California, bike advocates are pushing a new bill designed to clear up that confusion around what counts as an electric bicycle—and what doesn’t.
It’s a tricky balance. On one hand, backers want to allow riders access to new, faster, and more affordable non-car transportation options, ones that don’t require licenses and are emission-free. On the other hand, people, and especially kids, seem to be getting hurt. E-bike-related injuries jumped more than 1,020 percent nationwide between 2020 and 2024, according to hospital data, though it’s not clear if the stats-keepers can routinely distinguish between e-bikes and their faster, “e-moto” cousins. (Moped and powered-assisted cycle injuries jumped 67 percent in that same period.)
“We’re overdue to have better e-bike regulation,” says California state senator Catherine Blakespear, a Democrat who sponsored the bill and represents parts of North County in San Diego. “This has been an ongoing and growing issue for years.”
Senate Bill 1167 would make it illegal for retailers to label higher-powered, electric-powered vehicles as e-bikes. It would clarify that e-bikes have fully operative pedals and electric motors that don’t exceed 750 watts, enough to hit top speeds between 20 and 28 mph.
“We’re not against these devices,” says Kendra Ramsey, the executive director of the California Bicycle Coalition, which represents riders and is promoting the legislation. “People think they’re e-bikes and they’re not really e-bikes.”
Bill backers say they hope the fix, if it passes, makes a difference, especially for teenagers, who love the freedom that electric motors give them but can get into trouble if something goes wrong at higher speeds. Kids 17 and younger accounted for 20 percent of US e-bike injuries from 2020 to 2024, about in line with the share of the total population. But headlines—and the laws that follow them—have focused on teen injuries and even deaths.
There are no national laws governing e-bike riding. But bike backers spent years moving between states to pass laws that put e-bikes into three classes: Class 1, which have pedal-assist that only works when they’re actually pedaled, and goes up to 20 mph; Class 2, which have throttles that work without pedaling but still only reach 20 mph; and Class 3, which use pedal-assist to move up to 28 mph. Plenty of states and cities restrict the most powerful Class 3 bikes to people older than 16. (In a complicated twist, some e-bikes have different “modes,” allowing riders to toggle between Class 2 and Class 3.)
Last year, researchers visited 19 San Francisco Bay Area middle and high schools and found that 88 percent of the electric two-wheeled devices parked there were so high-powered and high-speed that they didn’t comply with the three-class system at all.
E-bikes have clearly struck a chord with state policymakers: At least 10 bills introduced this year deal with e-bikes, according to Ramsey.
Some bike advocates believe injuries have less to do with e-bikes than “e-motos,” a category that’s less likely to appear in retail stores or the sort of social media ads attracting teens to the tech. These have more powerful motors and can travel in excess of 30 mph. Vehicles, like the Surron Ultra Bee, which can hit top speeds of 55 mph, or Tuttio ICT, which can hit 50, are often marketed by retailers as “electric bikes.” Because so many sales happen online, it can be hard for people, and especially parents, to know what they’re getting into.
OpenAI has fired an employee following an investigation into their activity on prediction market platforms including Polymarket, WIRED has learned.
OpenAI CEO of Applications, Fidji Simo, disclosed the termination in an internal message to employees earlier this year. The employee, she said, “used confidential OpenAI information in connection with external prediction markets (e.g. Polymarket).”
“Our policies prohibit employees from using confidential OpenAI information for personal gain, including in prediction markets,” says spokesperson Kayla Wood. OpenAI has not revealed the name of the employee or the specifics of their trades.
Evidence suggests that this was not an isolated event. Polymarket runs on the Polygon blockchain network, so its trading ledger is pseudonymous but traceable. According to an analysis by the financial data platform Unusual Whales, there have been clusters of activities, which the service flagged as suspicious, around OpenAI-themed events since March 2023.
Unusual Whales flagged 77 positions in 60 wallet addresses as suspected insider trades, looking at the age of the account, trading history, and significance of investment, among other factors. Suspicious trades hinged on the release dates of products like Sora, GPT-5, and the ChatGPT Browser, as well as CEO Sam Altman’s employment status. In November 2023, two days after Altman was dramatically ousted from the company, a new wallet placed a significant bet that he would return, netting over $16,000 in profits. The account never placed another bet.
The behavior fits into patterns typical of insider trades. “The tell is the clustering. In the 40 hours before OpenAI launched its browser, 13 brand-new wallets with zero trading history appeared on the site for the first time to collectively bet $309,486 on the right outcome,” says Unusual Whales CEO Matt Saincome. “When you see that many fresh wallets making the same bet at the same time, it raises a real question about whether the secret is getting out.”
Prediction markets have exploded in popularity in recent years. These platforms allow customers to buy “event contracts” on the outcomes of future events ranging from the winner of the Super Bowl to the daily price of Bitcoin to whether the United States will go to war with Iran. There are a wide array of markets tied to events in the technology sector; you can trade on what Nvidia’s quarterly earnings will be, or when Tesla will launch a new car, or which AI companies will IPO in 2026.
As the platforms have grown, so have concerns that they allow traders to profit from insider knowledge. “This prediction market world makes the Wild West look tame in comparison,” says Jeff Edelstein, a senior analyst at the betting news site InGame. “If there’s a market that exists where the answer is known, somebody’s going to trade on it.”
Earlier this week, Kalshi announced that it had reported several suspicious insider trading cases to the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the government agency overseeing these markets. In one instance, an employee of the popular YouTuber Mr. Beast was suspended for two years and fined $20,000 for making trades related to the streamer’s activities; in another, the far-right political candidate Kyle Langford was banned from the platform for making a trade on his own campaign. The company also announced a number of initiatives to prevent insider trading and market manipulation.
While Kalshi has heavily promoted its crackdown on insider trading, Polymarket has stayed silent on the matter. The company did not return requests for comments.
In the past, major trades on technology-themed markets have sparked speculation that there are Big Tech employees profiting by using their insider knowledge to gain an edge. One notorious example is the so-called “Google whale,” a pseudonymous account on Polymarket that made over $1 million trading on Google-related events, including a market on who the most-searched person of the year would be in 2025. (It was the singer D4vd, who is best known for his connection to an ongoing murder investigation after a young fan’s remains were found in a vehicle registered to him.)
.png)
.png)
Tech1 week ago
Fashion1 week ago
Tech1 week ago
Entertainment1 week ago
Politics6 days ago
Politics1 week ago