Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments' • Hacker News Board

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#51

Post by ytoawwhra92 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:54 AM UTC

davnicwil wrote: post #47

varispeed wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These rankings are meaningless. If you actually studied in the UK, you'd notice a massive change in the last 5 years. Universities do not teach anymore (perhaps with a few exceptions), they are facilitating visas for foreign students without any expectation they'll be learning anything and nobody cares. They pass the exams barely attending any lectures. Everyone is happy, except home students who get massive debt and…

To push back on this, I actually don't think the real role of a university is to teach, per se. The real role they play is something very different to everything that comes before in education, and a bit closer to everything in the world that will ideally come after: immersion in your field of choice in an environment full of curious peers who are variously a few steps ahead of you, all the way up to world class expe…

I broadly agree with you, but universities have been trending in the opposite direction - becoming more like high schools - and students seem to be cheating in increasing numbers and more profoundly. Meanwhile, the cost keeps going up.

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#52

Post by davnicwil » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 3:27 AM UTC

dsf2 wrote: post #50

davnicwil wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To push back on this, I actually don't think the real role of a university is to teach, per se. The real role they play is something very different to everything that comes before in education, and a bit closer to everything in the world that will ideally come after: immersion in your field of choice in an environment full of curious peers who are variously a few steps ahead of you, all the way up to world class expe…

Not everyone wants this though. "You absolutely should be able to get a degree with top marks without attending a single lecture, seminar, lab, whatever, just by reading the material and interacting with those around you less formally, and never being actively 'taught' anything." So people should pay 9k a year to get a glorified piece of paper, when they essentially have taught themselves?

I mean, yes, except for the framing of paying for the piece of paper.

The piece of paper is just the evidence that you've been through a journey successfully. What you're really paying for is access to the environment that facilitates that journey.

The journey is essentially transitioning from a system which is pricipally about executing diligently on well-defined instructions, to one which is about reaching more broadly defined and often even self-selected goals by whatever means you choose.

Obviously aspects overlap, the changes come in steadily over the years of a degree, and even in the most ideal case it's still basically just practice, but the journey is supposed to develop the higher order skills that at that age you are ready to develop, and must develop to succeed 'in the wild' so to speak.

Absolutely 100% one of those higher order skills, indeed maybe the most important, is being able to self-teach whatever necessary to fill in gaps in order to do something interesting, that won't be provided for you or made easy for you in any way. You have to figure it out on your own. Just as you will have to in more or less every single challenge you encounter in the world after university.

So again, the environment in which you develop those skills (along with so many other benefits) is what you're paying for and the piece of paper, such that it is, is just the evidence you succeeded in that.

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#53

Post by dsf2 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 3:45 AM UTC

davnicwil wrote: post #52

dsf2 wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not everyone wants this though. "You absolutely should be able to get a degree with top marks without attending a single lecture, seminar, lab, whatever, just by reading the material and interacting with those around you less formally, and never being actively 'taught' anything." So people should pay 9k a year to get a glorified piece of paper, when they essentially have taught themselves?

I mean, yes, except for the framing of paying for the piece of paper. The piece of paper is just the evidence that you've been through a journey successfully. What you're really paying for is access to the environment that facilitates that journey. The journey is essentially transitioning from a system which is pricipally about executing diligently on well-defined instructions, to one which is about reaching more bro…

I dont agree with that.

THe majority of university courses don't require one to be in the environment - e.g. medicine does in contrast.

Employers frankly don't care about that - what they care about is 'are you going to be productive?'. Therefore what Universities have failed to understand is that students don't even care about the experience anymore - they want confidence that by the time they are 21 they will be employable.

Essentially what I'm pointing at - that you are missing - is that the University system is one-dimensional whilst not addressing the issues re. the bridge to the labour market and what employers demand. Something else, something much better is necessary that re-organises and disrupts the existing university model. I actually have a solution in mind, however, it's going to cause so many prof's who just collect a pay-cheque to lose their job that it'll cause a riot so I don't see people willing to push it through.

FYI I have spoken to many CEO's across a myriad of firms of varying complexities and sizes - they all fall on the same conclusions as I've stated. They simply do not care and want people who will be productive, particularly in-line with specifics of what the job entails, from day one. There is very little patience and resource allocated towards training anymore than years-past.

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#54

Post by pu_pe » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 8:03 AM UTC

m4rtink wrote: post #48

pu_pe wrote: post #29

European AI investment plans are always so timid. This article mentions a couple of investments on the order of $1.5-2.5 billion USD that their government says "would position the UK as a world leader in AI". Hard to imagine you can be a world leader in anything when investing two orders of magnitude less than your competitors.

Maybe this is just what realistic and maybe even sustainable AI investment looks like. Compared to the fever dreams playing out in the US.

OpenAI and Anthropic have ~40 billion yearly revenue already, and growing fast. I don't know if 10x that is the right amount to invest, but I'm pretty sure 0.1x of that is not going to cut it.

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#55

Post by zcw100 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:12 PM UTC

tim333 wrote: post #25

mrwh wrote: post #8

The UK has been chronically bad at providing jobs and training for its young people. I saw that 20 years ago when I was there. That is a key reason, perhaps the primary reason, for its long term productivity malaise. And the response is to lean into a technology that will make this situation profoundly worse? It's another lazy quick fix that is neither quick nor a real fix. The UK needs to invest in its people, not f…

Patrick Boyle had I thought a very good youtube on what's gone wrong - not enough investment in productive capital and too much propping up house prices roughly https://youtu.be/T3neJOdknqc

I really enjoy Patrick Boyle's reports. Really high information content with very little fluff. I love how he sneaks in the deadpan snarky comment every once in a while.

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#56

Post by zcw100 » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 2:13 PM UTC

nitwit005 wrote: post #35

slavoingilizov wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK has 3 of the top 10 universities in the world: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankin... It's a talent pool that many big employers want to tap into across a range of skills and industries. Cambridge is the best place to do bio-science and research. That is largely because the UK provides training and opportunities to its young people. "I saw that 20 years go" is one data point that ignor…

The people who aren't graduates of those universities also matter.

They should but they don't and that's the problem.

Re: Revealed: UK's multibillion AI drive is built on 'phantom investments'

#57

Post by davnicwil » Tue, Mar 10, 2026, 6:47 PM UTC

dsf2 wrote: post #53

davnicwil wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, yes, except for the framing of paying for the piece of paper. The piece of paper is just the evidence that you've been through a journey successfully. What you're really paying for is access to the environment that facilitates that journey. The journey is essentially transitioning from a system which is pricipally about executing diligently on well-defined instructions, to one which is about reaching more bro…

I dont agree with that. THe majority of university courses don't require one to be in the environment - e.g. medicine does in contrast. Employers frankly don't care about that - what they care about is 'are you going to be productive?'. Therefore what Universities have failed to understand is that students don't even care about the experience anymore - they want confidence that by the time they are 21 they will be em…

I agree with most of what you're saying in this reply but I also think we're now talking about a different thing, like how well does any of it prepare you for real world jobs.

That's separate from the question of being taught, self teaching, and the combo of the two, I think. That's more to do with just the material itself and the goals you're set.

I do think though, all else being equal, in a business you're going to want to prefer people who have demonstrated the kind of higher order skill and agency to be able to adapt and self teach.

I get that in a lot of businesses the difference might not be material, stuff turnover is high, focus is practical and short term and not about how this or that graduate will develop within the business over a long period of time and so on.

But still, of two people with the requisite hard skills to get going quickly you're probably always going to favour the one who seems better able to also adapt to changes and learn new skills in a totally self directed way, right?

Particularly in today's environment - I can hardly imagine a point in history where this has broadly been more important.