On Tuesday 11 February Oxford Brookes University welcomed guests from across the University and outside, to officially launch its Institute for Ethical Artificial Intelligence.
Guest speakers included Julian Burnett from IBM, Susan Scott-Parker from Business Disability International, Sana Kharagani from The Office for Artificial Intelligence and Tom Pickering from Icebreaker. The event showcased some of the pressing issues currently facing industry and society within the area of ethical artificial intelligence.
With an opening plenary by Professor Linda King, there followed a presentation by Professor Nigel Crook, Founder and Director for the Institute, who emphasised the Institute’s focus on the practical embedding of ethics, the need for risk management of artificial intelligence and ensuring that AI systems are fair.
The lecture theatre was full, with people who had a wide range of interest in the Institute; from researchers to commercial interest, sector and policy specialists, to those across the University with a wider academic interest.
The Institute offers solutions to challenges around bias, working with disability, legality and brand damage. At present, the Institute is working with two consortia to embed ethical AI into their sectors; human resources and legal. Employing a team of AI, data specialists and social scientists the Institute has access to over 70 additional researchers and consultants.
