How can the study of ant colonies and evolutionary theory help us ensure the resilience and sustainability of global shipping?

In this episode, host Amelia Jabry is joined by Professor Adam Sobey (Mission Director for Sustainability at the Alan Turing Institute) and Senior Applied Scientist Dr. Przemyslaw (Slaw) Grudniewski from Theyr. Together, they explore the ‘evolution’ of shipping route optimisation - from early concepts proposed by Alan Turing to cutting-edge Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms.

Discover how these ‘survival of the fittest’ models are being used to navigate the complex world of charter party agreements, fuel efficiency, and autonomous vessels. They also dive into the environmental impact of rerouting, discussing how a 1% change in fuel consumption can protect vital megafauna like whales, and what the melting Arctic means for the future of global trade.

Chapter Markers

0:30 | Co-Host Introduction: Professor Adam Sobey

1:20 | Guest Introduction: Dr. Przemyslaw (Slaw) Grudniewski

4:30 | The Path to Genetic Algorithms

5:00 | Why Shipping Matters: The Ever Given Incident

6:20 | The Sustainability Imperative

7:15 | Defining Genetic Algorithms

8:40 | Applying Evolutionary Principles to Route Optimisation

10:20 | Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms

11:00 | Charter Party Agreements & Alternative Fuels

12:20 | The Rise of Fully Autonomous Vessels

13:30 | Sustainability Benefits of Autonomy

14:40 | Safety and Regulation

16:15 | Risks: Cyber Threats and Bad Actors

18:00 | Why Genetic Algorithms Win

19:00 | Top Performance: cMLSGA

20:20 | History: From Alan Turing to Today

22:20 | Ants, Tribes, and Co-Evolution

23:50 | Scaling Solutions through Collectives

25:25 | Multi-Level Selection

26:20 | Collective vs. Convergence-Based Algorithms

28:00 | Success Stories: TVOS and Whale Protection

29:50 | Navigating the Environment

32:50 | The Arctic and New Trade Routes

35:50 | Industry Adoption and Client Surprises

38:30 | The Future: Power Prediction Models

41:00 | Summary and the Power of Collaboration

The Arctic is undergoing rapid changes due to climate change, making sea ice forecasting increasingly important. In this episode of the Turing Podcast, hosts Amelia Jabry and Dr. Sophie Arana discuss the critical role of AI models like IceNet in predicting sea ice conditions and aiding conservation efforts. Featuring Dr. Ellie Bowler from the British Antarctic Survey, the conversation dives into the technical details of IceNet, its applications for wildlife conservation, and the challenges of predicting sea ice dynamics. The discussion also covers the importance of these predictions for indigenous communities and wildlife that rely on the frozen Arctic landscape. Learn how AI is revolutionising our approach to these urgent environmental challenges.

Read more about our environmental forecasting work here: https://www.turing.ac.uk/blog/democratising-environmental-forecasting-age-ai 

Explore IceNet: https://icenet.ai/

Find out more about Dr Ellie Bowler's publications: https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/eller/

Read more about Dr Sophie Arana here: https://www.turing.ac.uk/people/dr-sophie-arana 

Chapters:

New podcast - defending our critical national infrastructure.

Podcast host Amelia Jabry is joined by co-host and Turing Principal Research Scientist, Vasilios Mavroudis to explore how AI is reshaping both the defence and attack of vital systems like healthcare, energy and transport. With the help of special guest, Microsoft’s Director of Global AI & Cybersecurity Policy Nicholas Butts, they ask: how vulnerable are our power grids, water systems, and communications networks in the age of advanced AI? And what are organisations like the Alan Turing Institute and Microsoft are doing to protect these essential services?

Episode Notes

Please find below a list of resources and news articles that were mentioned in the podcast: 

Ed and David chat with Professor Ibrahim Habli, Research Director at the Centre for Assuring Autonomy in the University of York, and director of the UKRI Centre for Doctoral Training in Safe AI Systems. The conversation covers the topic of defining and contextualising AI safety and risk, given existence of existing safety practices from other industries. Ibrahim has collaborated with The Alan Turing Institute on the "Trustworthy and Ethical Assurance platform", or "TEA" for short, an open-source tool for developing and communicating structured assurance arguments to show how data science and AI tech adheres to ethical principles.

On this episode, Bea and Jessie are joined by Becky Inkster and Mark Sheppard, co-founders of The Laß; a fusion of science, creativity and personal reflection.

Collaborating with famous musicians, dancers and members of the public, Becky and Mark use EEG brain activity technology to visualise poignant moments. They hope to offer both internal and external reflection opportunities to nurture personal growth and community bonds.

For more information visit -

https://www.beckyinkster.com/the-lab

Don't forget to explore our shorter AI news podcast - too long didn't read

To what extent can a computer network be actively managed and defended by intelligent autonomous agents?

In this episode, Ed and Anneca talk to Vasilios Mavroudis and Chris Hicks explore this question and more. 

Vas and Chris lead the Turing’s AI for Cyber Defence (AICD) research centre which seeks to fundamentally transform the way in which we secure digital systems through the development and application of cutting edge, deep-learning based approaches to intelligent agents. 

Find more information about AICD here

Don't forget to explore our shorter AI in the news podcast - too long didn't read

On this episode of The Turing Podcast Bea and Anneca are joined by Lord Chris Holmes, Britain’s most successful Paralympic swimmer and an active member of the House of Lords with a policy focus on digital technology for public good.

Connect with Lord Holmes on  Linked In

Explore our regular news AI news podcast, too long didn't read

The Turing Podcast revisits Project Bluebird; a fascinating collaboration aiming to solve some of the biggest and most complex problems in air traffic control with digital twins and AI.

Join Ed as he sits down with Nick Pepper of The Alan Turing Institute, George De Ath of the University of Exeter and Marc Thomas of NATS - the team behind Project Bluebird.

First featured on our podcast in 2020, the team now provides a progress update at the midpoint mark. Learn how they are developing innovative AI to train a digital twin air traffic controller with the aim of enhancing aviation safety and functionality, and what the challenges are, integrating human expertise with machine intelligence.

This week the podcast, the hosts are joined by Kate Highnam and Myles Foley, both of whom are PhD candidates at Imperial College London working at the intersection of machine learning and cyber security. Kate and Myles were part of a team who last year won the CAGE challenge (Cyber Autonomy Gym for Experimentation), with their reinforcement learning-based solution. We chat about how advances in AI are being used to address challenges in cyber security, and what can and cannot be automated.

This week on The Turing Podcast we chat about some of the research going on in the collaborations between the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and The Alan Turing Institute, including efforts to automate the route planning of ships in polar regions, and the building of a digital twin for Antarctica!  The hosts are joined by Dr Scott Hosking and Dr Jonathan Smith. Scott is Co-Director for the Alan Turing Institute Research and Innovation Cluster in Digital Twins, as well as the founder and leader of the BAS AI lab. Jonathan is a Principal Research Scientist, also at the BAS AI lab.