UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI • Hacker News Board

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#81

Post by grey-area » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:44 PM UTC

madaxe_again wrote: post #72

oli5679 wrote: post #53

The USA's DARPA program funded important research into - The internet - GPS - Graphical user interface and mouse - Onion routing - Voice assistant Hopefully this program executes well. There is clearly a big social payoff to betting big on credible people doing risky research with high potential impact. https://www.itpro.co.uk/technology/34730/10-amazing-darpa-in...

That’s nice, but this isn’t what this will be about. This will be a means of funnelling cash to party donors without oversight, nothing more. Hence the FOI exception. I mean, just look at how they’ve fared in the last 18 months alone - how many unaccountable tens of billions did they pay out to their donors? I had Tory ministers’ children approaching me about putting together business plans to help them get covid gra…

For those doubting the above, here is an example from the recent past of corruption from the Prime Minister, paying his lover with public funds:

https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/31/10000-grant-given-boris-johns...

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#82

Post by dalbasal » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

oli5679 wrote: post #53

The USA's DARPA program funded important research into - The internet - GPS - Graphical user interface and mouse - Onion routing - Voice assistant Hopefully this program executes well. There is clearly a big social payoff to betting big on credible people doing risky research with high potential impact. https://www.itpro.co.uk/technology/34730/10-amazing-darpa-in...

DARPA gets used as an example a lot, so let's take it as a our type specimen.

What makes an (D)ARPA? What (besides funding) made it work?

Is secrecy and/or low accountability important? Defense/weapons focus? Was the cold war a necessary condition? Do they have an investment philosophy that could be copied? Managerial philosophy?

Is high level stuff even relevant or is it details like 5 year PM appointments and selection criteria? I always thought tenure-like jobs would be useful if you have high creativity/risk goals.

Thoughts? Any agencies (outside the US, also) that should also be considered shining example? Any failed attempts at creating a DARPA?

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#83

Post by madaxe_again » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

notahacker wrote: post #67

motohagiography wrote: post #12

I still don't see how any government granting committee can outperform hundreds of private venture funds competing for exposure to new opportunities. Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses, they don't scale to compete with a healthy investment community. As described, the risks I see are that, it has the incentives for a patronage slush fund, there will be selection bias to hedge political risk around pe…

VC has quite specific expectations for an opportunity: the company that develops the service enjoying massive growth (or a massive strategic acquisition) within a decade or so. VCs weren't competing to fund Apollo missions or poverty reduction and not because nobody wanted them. Government can invest in projects which have different types of return: projects which are only beneficial or more beneficial if given away…

For an indication of how this will go, it’s worth looking at how the existing R&D grants system is used and abused.

I have done a few “hold your nose” consultancy gigs for an outfit that specialises in the entirely legal, if morally dubious, process, of importing the family of high net worth individuals on entrepreneurship visas - and laundering their money into the U.K.

I was approached in 2016, after I cashed out of my business, by an acquaintance from school who had spent a few years as a Tory MP, and was now using his barristers chambers to run this scheme. He was the head of chambers’ nephew, and is still considered their golden goose, because this stuff is seriously lucrative.

I’d provide a business plan, and would be the U.K. national director. They’d be the investor director from overseas. I assigned all reporting etc. over to the agency, so I was just producing business plans and providing a U.K. taxpayer’s identity.

They’d put in their money (as it’s an investment the burdens of UWOs and so-forth don’t apply, as it’s counted as a liability, not an asset), the government would match it, and they then come to Mayfair, pay themselves a salary for three years, do an annual R&D tax credit and get a nice big cheque from HMRC, and then wind the whole thing up when it “unexpectedly fails”.

I did two of these before I got cold feet. A Russian oligarch’s son, a Kazakh oligarch’s wife. Never met them, only found out their IDs after the companies were incorporated.

Whole damn thing stinks to high hell, but it’s essentially the intended purpose of the scheme.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#84

Post by hhmc » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

dalbasal wrote: post #58

OK so the British HNers commenting seem to be unimpressed. :) Leaving this specific agency/project aside, what would be the right way to do this? How do we do public investment in high risk projects well?

Another approach is VCT/EIS, where private investment is incentivized via aggressive tax breaks.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#85

Post by yawaworht1978 » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

motohagiography wrote: post #12

I still don't see how any government granting committee can outperform hundreds of private venture funds competing for exposure to new opportunities. Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses, they don't scale to compete with a healthy investment community. As described, the risks I see are that, it has the incentives for a patronage slush fund, there will be selection bias to hedge political risk around pe…

Wasn't the internet itself funded by the government before companies like google and amazon abused everything that was not regulated soon enough?

The governments should not be inventors, though, I agree. Government should regulate and protect without uncalled for interventions.

Publicly funded non foi sounds like a playground for scammers and corruption.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#86

Post by kurthr » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

jarmitage wrote: post #63

The FOI part means this is dead on arrival and will be abused all ends up. For this to work you need the public to understand why DARPA worked. Hiding details of failures makes that impossible (and again, completely open to corruption).

Yep, seems more like a way to keep scandals like Cummings no-bid contract to his friends from coming to light. If it can be used as a slush fund, it probably will be, and eventually probably exclusively.

https://www.theweek.co.uk/951989/what-next-for-dominic-cummi...

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#87

Post by vanderZwan » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 4:58 PM UTC

jdavis703 wrote: post #17

motohagiography wrote: post #12

I still don't see how any government granting committee can outperform hundreds of private venture funds competing for exposure to new opportunities. Even if you have a government dept. of 10x geniuses, they don't scale to compete with a healthy investment community. As described, the risks I see are that, it has the incentives for a patronage slush fund, there will be selection bias to hedge political risk around pe…

The internet came out of a US government funded “advanced research projects agency.” It took decades before VCs monetized that research.

Similarly, the photolithography tech used by ASML Holding originated from research funded by the Dutch government.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ASML_Holding

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#88

Post by lordnacho » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

dageshi wrote: post #11

libertine wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Usually these initiatives should be extremely transparent, and they're the exact opposite. That's not good. A current example is the covid 19 vaccine contracts, which were multi billion dollar/euro/pound deals, with accelerated research and approvals, and so far only one contract was made public. It is specially concerning when some vaccines were developed with public funding.

It doesn't matter. Genuinely, the only thing that mattered was working, safe vaccines as quickly as possible. Whatever government paid is absolute peanuts compared to the costs associated with locking down economies let alone the lives potentially saved. Covid19 was and is a crisis, you may well have a point in terms of other initiatives in this space, but with covid all that mattered was finding a solution as quickl…

> all that mattered was finding a solution as quickly as possible

What's to stop someone spending a bunch of money on a dead-end project that benefits them and no-one else, and then saying "hey, it's risky, bummer we couldn't make a vaccine"?

We can be generous to make sure it gets done by someone, but we should also make sure that people actually try.

The current UK government has a lot of stories about procurement, and it gives the impression that they mainly benefitted their friends, with the procurement of PPE and vaccines being a nice side-effect.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#89

Post by dragonwriter » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:01 PM UTC

jack_riminton wrote: post #51

dragonwriter wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, it's a good thing the US in general, it's government more specifically, and it's defense establishment particularly are completely free of cronyism, and there aren't huge numbers of people influential in every field even loosely associated with the US’s vast military-industrial complex that have gotten their by networking rather than any other form of merit.

Do you have any concrete points or just snark?

Kind of an odd response, given that the preceding post was at the same level of generality.

Re: UK to launch taxpayer-funded high-risk tech research agency exempt from FOI

#90

Post by LinuxBender » Wed, Feb 17, 2021, 5:03 PM UTC

jarmitage wrote: post #63

The FOI part means this is dead on arrival and will be abused all ends up. For this to work you need the public to understand why DARPA worked. Hiding details of failures makes that impossible (and again, completely open to corruption).

In the U.S. everything is technically exempt from FOIA to a degree. Having gone through that process while I was in the military, I found many of the loopholes. The obvious ones are that the answer can be "Classified" or "Decline to answer" or in my case, the answer can be boxes and boxes of paperwork that is worded so vague that it may as well not have existed. No idea if this is the same in the U.K. Is there anyone from the U.K. here that has gone through the process?