We're rounding off this season of Living with AI with a bonus episode! We'll meet three Early Career Researchers (ECRs) who have benefitted from a TAShub grant. We'll find out what they did with the grants, how the money benefitted them and what legacy TAS leaves.

ECRs:
Andriana Boudouraki specialised in telepresence: https://andrianaboudouraki.com/

Balint Gyevnar specialised in explainable AI in applications such as Autonomous Vehicles:
Bálint Gyevnár (gbalint.me) https://gbalint.me/

Eike Schneiders focussed on the role of responsible AI in interpersonal relationships
Eike Schneiders, Ph.D. - Assistant Professor | HCI/HRI Research https://eikeschneiders.github.io/  

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

As the Internet expands through paradigms like the Internet of Things (IoT), massively multiplayer online (MMO) games, videotelephony and the Metaverse, Autonomous Systems (AS) are increasingly used to mediate society’s dataflows. These systems are often promoted as resource-efficient and used to mitigate the impact of the Internet’s expanding data-driven ecosystem. 

Because of their ubiquity and scale, the environmental impacts of hyper-scale autonomous systems are intensifying and their sustainable trustworthiness is frequently undermined.

Using methods from Design, Human Computing Interaction and Science & Technology Studies research, this project collaborated with people such as technologists, policy-makers and citizen end-users. The idea was to rethink current AS infrastructures and anticipate resilient and efficient digital energy transition pathways for Resource Responsible Trustworthy Autonomous Systems design.

Project website:  https://imagination.lancaster.ac.uk/project/internet-zero/

Joining the podcast are:

·                 Dr Michael Stead – Lecturer in Sustainable Design Futures – Imagination Design Research Lab – Lancaster University

 ·                 Professor Paul Coulton – Chair in Speculative and Game Design – Imagination Design Research Lab – Lancaster University

 ·                 Dr Neelima Sailaja – Assistant Professor – Horizon Digital Economy Research Centre – University of Nottingham

 ·                 Dr Ola Michalec – Research Fellow – School of Computer Science – University of Bristol

Also involved in the project:
 ·                 Dr Nuri Kwon – Senior Research Associate – Imagination Design Research Lab – Lancaster University

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

Forest protection is essential to mitigating climate change, and a major objective of the Forests and Climate Leaders’ Partnership established at COP27.

The ASPEN project aims to develop an integrated framework for the autonomous detection, diagnosis and treatment of tree pests and diseases while trialling key components.

Co-delivered by a multidisciplinary team, with UK Forestry Commission and industry partners, ASPEN wants to advance the sociotechnical feasibility of managing tree health through improving the application of machine learning to remote sensing forest data, trialling autonomous sampling for diagnosis and treatment deployment, and crystallising the governance context of these systems.

Project website: Autonomous Systems for Forest ProtEctioN – UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub (tas.ac.uk) 

Podcast Guests:  
Dr Seumas Bates, Research Officer in Environmental Social Science
Dr Calum Imrie, Research Associate - University of York

Acknowledgement: Norman Dandy 

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

Discussing what AI could bring to the energy grid. Can we trust artificial intelligence systems to improve the supply, either to improve reliability, efficiency or ecology?

We learn about the four "D"s of energy: 

Democratisation
Digitisation 
Decarbonised. 
Decentralised

Guest: Professor Zhong Fan Net Zero Energy Systems , Exeter University.

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

Effective embedding of robotics and autonomous systems for social care will require alignment across many levels. This project seeks to move from the imaginary to the concrete by using an actual robot to help with dressing people, and imagining how this might integrate within the existing health-social care ecosystem in the UK.

Employing Lego Serious Play as a tool for creative exploration, the project wants to build a physical map of this system in order to identify agents and obstacles which may influence trust in, and therefore the integration of, this robot, and experiment with potential reconfigurations. The project is also conducting a series of interviews in the lab where the dressing robot is being developed, in order to understand how engineers make technical decisions.

Find our more information at the website: Mapping trustworthy systems for RAS in social care (MAP-RAS) – UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub (tas.ac.uk)

Guest: Stevienna de Saille, Lecturer in Sociology, University of Sheffield

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

Does academia lead and industry follow? Or are there breakthroughs made on both sides? How siloed is AI innovation? We discuss some of the Innovate UK initiatives to bridge industry and academia.

Guest: Trias Gkikopoulos, Innovation Lead - Robotics & Artificial Intelligence at Innovate UK 

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

Democratic elections should be both free and fair, but also that citizens believe that the elections are free and fair. It is also essential that the institutions in charge of managing elections are trusted in the delivery of these goals.

Regulators struggle to keep up with technological developments, and many are under-resourced and time-poor. The integrity of elections is under attack, so a focus on getting these things right is more important than ever.

The "Delivering Trustworthy Electoral Oversight" project investigates a natural language processing model that can classify and analyse election spending returns in near real time. Without good quality information, concerns about electoral integrity foment so this project aims to address that issue.

Project website: Delivering Trustworthy Electoral Oversight – UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub (tas.ac.uk)

Podcast guest:
Sam Power, Senior Lecturer in Politics, University of Sussex

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

Mobile phones store valuable information about geographical movements, communications behaviours and online browsing history. They are increasingly used as a source of evidence in criminal investigations. The Mobile Phone Extraction (MPE) process, involves making copies of a device belonging to suspects, victims or witnesses. The extracted data is examined by police and others in the criminal justice system during ongoing investigations.

There is a crisis of trust and practice in MPE. This project addresses the crisis by supporting development of a trustworthy and useful platform for MPE. The project partnered with experts in software development (Telemarq) and digital forensics (Hargs Solutions).

Project webpage: Trustworthy and Useful Tools for Mobile Phone Extraction – UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Hub (tas.ac.uk)

Joining us on the podcast:

1. Helena Webb, Transitional Assistant Professor, University of Nottingham
 2. Liz Dowthwaite, Senior Research Fellow, University of Nottingham
 3. Anna-Maria Piskopani, Research Fellow in IT Law, Horizon Institute of Digital Economy, University of Nottingham

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

To solve the big questions of autonomy and transport, collaboration is essential. Our guest on this episode is Professor Siddartha Khastgir, Head of Safe Autonomy, WMG, University of Warwick. 

Siddartha emphasizes some of the huge challenges in transport with regards AI and we discuss these safety critical scenarios. 

Podcast Host: Sean Riley

With generative AI creation tools for language, images and videos plus algorithmically curated social media feeds, it can feel as though AI is muscling in on a previously human domain. We discuss some of the digital regulation around AI in the creative industries.

Guest: 
Martin Kretschmer, Director, CREATe, Professor of Intellectual Property Law, School of Law | College of Social Sciences | ARC | University of Glasgow 

Podcast Host: Sean Riley