Ian Hogarth, Investor and Entrepreneur

Ian is an engineer and businessman who has spent his whole professional life working with software. During his master’s program in information engineering at the University of Cambridge, he focused on machine learning. A computer vision system to categorize breast cancer biopsy pictures was his master’s project.

Ian studied Mandarin for a year in Beijing before starting the performance service Songkick.com. Over 17 million music lovers use Songkick every month to find gigs. As co-founder and CEO, Ian grew Songkick to employ more than 100 people and generate over $100 million in ticket sales. Y Combinator, Index Ventures, and Sequoia Capital provided Songkick with funding. Songkick filed a Sherman Act lawsuit against TicketMaster in 2015 alleging anti-trust breaches and anti-competitive behavior. In January 2018, the dispute was resolved out-of-court for $130 million. After being purchased by Warner Music Group, Songkick still helping users locate live events.

2023

The Government’s Foundation Model Taskforce has named Ian Hogarth as its head. Hogarth will answer directly to the Prime Minister and the Technology Secretary. Ian is a renowned expert in artificial intelligence and has co-authored the yearly State of AI report since 2018. As the creator of the venture capital fund Plural and the start-up Songkick, Ian has a solid expertise in tech entrepreneurship. He is also a visiting lecturer at University College London.

The government’s AI policy and the AI White Paper’s release are supported by the appointment, which offers a depth of expertise in responsible technology development. Ian will contribute invaluable insights to this post due to his extensive business expertise and network within the AI industry.

Leading the Taskforce under Ian’s direction, one of the main objectives for the upcoming months will be advancing state-of-the-art safety research in preparation for the first worldwide summit on AI safety, which will take place in the UK later this year. The Taskforce, which consists of professionals from academia, business, and government, will examine the dangers associated with AI. It will do safety research on AI and contribute to larger efforts to create global safeguards, such infrastructure and standards for safety and security, that may be used to mitigate the dangers.

Latest news about Ian Hogarth

• The UK government has appointed AI industry experts to the external advisory board of its Frontier AI Taskforce, focusing on systems that pose significant risks to public safety and global security. The Taskforce has recruited seven industry experts, including Turing Prize Laureate Yoshua Bengio, Government Communications Headquarters Director Anne Keast-Butler, and former OpenAI researcher Paul Christiano. Leading AI companies, including Anthropic, DeepMind, and OpenAI, have pledged their support by providing extensive access to their AI models. The Taskforce has received £100 million in funding to advance the safe and reliable development of frontier AI models.
• The British government has invested £100 million ($124.5 million) in a taskforce to develop foundation models for artificial intelligence. The investment aims to ensure the UK remains globally competitive in AI technology, with a focus on healthcare and education. The taskforce will work towards establishing the UK as a world leader in foundation models and promoting AI safety as a global standard.

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