The Turing Podcast

This special episode of the Turing Podcast revisits Project Bluebird – the project that featured on our very first ever episode on the podcast in 2020! Host Amelia Jabry is joined by Ben Carvell, an aviation researcher leading AI agent design on Project Bluebird, and Andrew “Andy” Pace, a London terminal air traffic control officer (ATCO), who describes ATCO work, sectorisation, radar-based operations, and the still-analogue reliance on voice. They examine the growing complexity of air traffic control as traffic returns to, and surpasses, pre-COVID levels and the added challenges from drones, new aircraft types, and emissions constraints, stressing human cognitive limits in a safety-critical environment. Bluebird is a multi-year partnership between the Alan Turing Institute, NATS, and the University of Exeter with three themes: building a high-fidelity digital twin, developing virtual controller agents using methods from rules to optimisation and reinforcement learning, and addressing trust/explainability. Join Amelia, Andy and Ben as they discuss the challenges and opportunities of building an AI system to assist ATCOs in one of the most safety-critical industries in the world.    00:00 The Hidden Chessboard at the heart of Air Traffic Control 00:37 Meet Ben Carvell and Andy Pace 03:20 What Air Traffic Control Officers (ATCOs) Do 06:20 Safety Rules for aviation and the moral responsibility of ATCOs 08:00 Introducing Project Bluebird 08:52 3 Main themes of Bluebird’s research: Digital Twins, AI Agents for Air Traffic Control, and Trust 10:30 The legal and moral responsibility of Air Traffic Control 12:20 The Science: The Physics Informed ML (PML) behind Bluebird. Including dealing with variability and the unknown. 14:55 Rules Optimisation versus Reinforcement Learning (RL) 15:50 A blast from the past 17:40 A collaboration with Johns Hopkins University tackling the issue of explainability in RL introducing ‘Relevant traffic’  20:36 TRUST: Safety Minima vs Collisions in Airspace – what is ‘non-negotiable’? 23:40 Interrogating the AI’s logic and maintaining trust 24:00 A curriculum for machines? The AI’s and ATCOs final exam 26:00 Bringing an ATCO onto project Bluebird – tool support for ATCOs 30:00 Intuition vs learning – the ‘mystical ATCO scan’  32:30 The ever-crowding airspace and increasing challenges to ATCOs 33:30 They history of Bluebird: 2020 versus now 35:40 How ATCOs really feel about Bluebird 36:02 Introducing Falcon - Are humans the ultimate guarantor of safety, or is our cognitive limit the ceiling for system efficiency? 40:15 Move 37 and the potential for Discovery 43:20 Collaboration between institutions and the real outputs Bluebird has made (the game!) 44:22 Wrap Up and Find Out More

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 Introduction of Adam Sobey, Mission Director for Sustainability at the Alan Turing Institute and Professor at the University of Southampton. 1:20 | Guest Introduction: Dr. Przemyslaw (Slaw) Grudniewski Introduction of Slava, Senior Applied Scientist atTheyr The history of Adam and Slava’s collaboration, starting from Slava's PhD in 2015. 4:30 | The Path to Genetic Algorithms Why the team focused on genetic algorithms, including the influence of a talk at the University of Bristol on co-evolution mechanisms. 5:00 | Why Shipping Matters: The Ever Given Incident The significance of global trade by sea (80-90%) and the 2021 Suez Canal blockage by theEver Given. 6:20 | The Sustainability Imperative Shipping currently accounts for 2-3% of world emissions, emphasizing the massive need for reduced costs and improved sustainability. 7:15 | Defining Genetic Algorithms Explaining unsupervised learning algorithms based on "survival of the fittest" and evolutionary mechanics. 8:40 | Applying Evolutionary Principles to Route Optimisation How routes are treated as individuals that create "offspring" through crossover and mutation. 10:20 | Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithms "There is no one best route"—balancing conflicting goals like voyage time vs. fuel consumption. Explaining why multi-objective approaches provide a set of optimal solutions rather than a single answer. 11:00 | Charter Party Agreements & Alternative Fuels The complexity of "rental agreements" (charter parties) and the shift toward net-zero fuels like ammonia, hydrogen, and nuclear. 12:20 | The Rise of Fully Autonomous Vessels Navigating the challenges of crewless ships and how they allow for real-time route adjustments. 13:30 | Sustainability Benefits of Autonomy Removing crew-related weight can lead to estimated fuel reductions of around 20%. 14:40 | Safety and Regulation The role of the Alan Turing Institute and Lloyd’s Register in developing standards and validation for autonomous systems. 16:15 | Risks: Cyber Threats and Bad Actors Addressing piracy, cybersecurity risks, and the safety of alternative fuel sources. 18:00 | Why Genetic Algorithms Win Comparing genetic algorithms against local search methods like A* and Dijkstra for complex, real-world problems. 19:00 | Top Performance: cMLSGA ThecMLSGA (Convolutional Multi-Level Selection Genetic Algorithm) and its 7-8% improvement over other models. This represents a saving of 50 to 380 tonnes of fuel per day for large vessels. 20:20 | History: From Alan Turing to Today How the field traces back to Turing’s 1948 ideas of "child-like" intelligence that learns and evolves. 22:20 | Ants, Tribes, and Co-Evolution Using the study of ant colonies and human tribal behaviour to understand collective fitness and reproduction. 23:50 | Scaling Solutions through Collectives Applying the concept of "collectives" to solve large-scale optimisation problems through collaboration. 25:25 | Multi-Level Selection How "groups of individuals" (collectives) can compete and work together to look at different objectives simultaneously. 26:20 | Collective vs. Convergence-Based Algorithms Why maintaining diversity in a population is more effective than focusing on a single "perfect" solution too early. Diversity provides better and more informed choices with the data at hand. 28:00 | Success Stories: TVOS and Whale Protection TheTVOS (Theyr Voyage Optimisation Software) and its real-world impact. The importance of protecting marine life and megafauna. 29:50 | Navigating the Environment The difficulty of rerouting massive ships and the role of deep learning vs. genetic algorithms in icy environments. 32:50 | The Arctic and New Trade Routes How melting sea ice is opening new routes and the resulting need for specialized "ice-class" vessels. 35:50 | Industry Adoption and Client Surprises Overcoming the lack of maritime background to deliver results that surprise industry veterans. 38:30 | The Future: Power Prediction Models What’s next for the field, including more advanced predictive modelling. 41:00 | Summary and the Power of Collaboration A hopeful look at how the Alan Turing Institute acts as a convening power for sustainability research.

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: 00:00 Introduction to Arctic Climate Change 00:39 Meet the your host Amelia and co-host Dr Sophie Arana  00:57 Understanding the Role of a Research Application Manager 01:47 Introduction to ICE Net 02:47 AI vs. Traditional Physics-based Forecasting Models 03:40 Human Expertise and AI Collaboration 04:56 Introducing Dr. Ellie Bowler and her sea ice and caribou migration forecasting research 06:21 Challenges in Sea Ice Forecasting 10:01 Caribou Migration and Conservation 12:30 Impact of Human Activities on Arctic Wildlife 16:38 Innovative Conservation Methods 23:25 Future of ICE Net and AI in Conservation 26:54 Conclusion and Further Resources

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:  Microsoft Digital Defense Report 2024 Glossary - AIRC Staying ahead of threat actors in the age of AI | Microsoft Security Blog https://www.thestack.technology/ai-agent-whisperer-liberates-llm-to-spout-filthy-cardy-b-lyrics/ https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0el31nqnpvo https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx1qp64wrno    

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.

This week the hosts chat with Dr Katie McDonough and Dr Daniel Wilson. Katie is a lecturer in Digital Humanities in the Department of History at Lancaster University and a Senior Research Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. Daniel is a Turing Research Fellow and historian of science and technology. The episode covers their research at the Turing and the growing intersection between the worlds of data science and the humanities and arts, with a focus on the MapReader software developed explore and analyse maps (and other images) at scale.

In the first episode of The Turing Podcast season 4, the hosts are joined by Cari Hyde-Vaamonde, a PhD candidate at Kings College London and visiting lecturer in law. The episode discusses the field of Algorithmic Justice and Cari's work modelling the decision making process of judges.

Artificial Intelligence has transformed the way we interact with technology, from voice assistants to autonomous vehicles. As the development and implementation of AI continues to grow at pace, the question of regulation is absolutely key.   Join Bea and Anneca as they discuss the ramifications of the EU's AI regulations framework with the Turing's Ray Eitel-Porter and Florian Ostmann. 

Join Bea and Anneca as they discuss the potential and current AI tools being used around treating and diagnosing illnesses such as dementia, with Zoe Kourtzi. Zoe is Professor of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. Her research aims to develop predictive models of neurodegenerative disease and mental health with translational impact in early diagnosis and personalised interventions.

In this week’s Turing Podcast, Ed chats with Tim Harford about the themes from his 2020 book “How to Make the World Add Up”, which include thinking about the ways statistics and numbers are (mis)used in the media and what we can do about it. Tim is an economist and presenter of the BBC radio show “More or less”.

Welcome to the Coffee Pod! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.   In this episode, Bea is speaking to Hussein Rappel. Hussein has worked on the PDRA on Digital Twins in Infrastructure and Construction project in the Complex Systems Engineering theme.

Welcome to another Coffee Pod episode! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.   Today Bea is speaking to Malvika Sharan, a senior researcher. Malvika works on Open Research in the Tools, Practices and Systems theme.

Welcome to another Coffee Pod episode! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.   In this episode, Bea is joined with Fernando Benitez, a research associate. Fernando worked on PDRA - the Spatial Modelling project in the Shocks and the Resilience cross-theme project. 

Welcome to another episode of the Coffee Pod Podcast! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.  In this episode, Bea catches up with Tom Andersson, a data scientist. Tom's worked on the Turing/British Antarctic Survey on Environmental models: Bridging the spatial scales, from surface sensors to satellite sensors in the Environment and Sustainability cross-theme project.

Welcome to another episode of the Coffee Pod podcast! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.  Joining Bea this week is Domenic DiFrancesco, a Turing Research Fellow. Domenic's worked on the project PDRA Digital Twins for Fleets and Supply Chain Management in the Ecosystems of Digital Twins cross-theme.

Following Tom Mustill’s popular Turing Lecture at the Royal Institution, How to Speak Whale, Tom joins Bea and Jo to catch up on the latest advancements in communication between humans and animals. This lively edition of the Turing podcast covers a great variety of subjects, including some of Tom’s favourite (and surprising) whale facts, and whether attempting to chat with aliens should be prioritised over speaking with animals. A biologist and filmmaker, Tom has recently also turned writer. His debut book, How To Speak Whale: A Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication, was selected as one of Amazon's Best Books of The Year. 

Welcome to the first Coffee Pod episode! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.  Joining podcast host Bea this week is Ruoyun Hui, a postdoctoral research associate at The Alan Turing Institute.  This series is hosted by Bea Costa Gomes and produced by Luca Lane. The music has been produced by Spiders Eat Vinyl.

With Dr Adrian Weller (Programme Director and Turing Fellow) and Kate Platonova (Group Chief Data Analytics Officer at HSBC), Ed Chalstrey discusses how AI is being used in financial services and what data is useful in banking today.

Join Ed and David as they speak to Ellen Pasternack, a PHD student in evolutionary biology at the University of Oxford.  Ellen is a science writer for UnHerd and Works in Progress. In this episode, we’re going to chat about one of her most recent articles, "The Stats Gap", which explores the issues with statistical education for university scientists.

Join Aoife and Sally as they chat to Dr Tamsin Edwards about how she uses AI to predict rising sea levels, following her Turing Lecture at the Royal Institution. Tamsin is a climate scientist, specialising in the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly for ice sheets and glaciers.  Within her research, she also uses information about past climates to improve predictions for the future. In this podcast, we will be catching up with her as she answers some of the questions that the audience submitted at the Turing Lecture which did not get asked. Watch Tamsin's full Turing lecture here: https://youtu.be/CbEKI_LfNWA

Join Aoife and Torty as they chat with Professor Sarah Sharples about the current state of technology and AI around driverless vehicles. Sarah (chief scientific advisor for the department for transport) recently did a Turing lecture at the Royal Institution, discussing the topic. In this podcast, she’ll be answering a range of different questions from the evening.

This week we are joined by Manchester United women's footballer Aoife Mannion, Author and CEO of Glitch Seyi Akiwowo and Turing Researcher Pica Johansson to discuss online abuse suffered by football players and other athletes online. The Turing recently partnered with OfCom, who comissioned a report in relation to its upcoming role as the UK’s Online Safety regulator tracking abuse on Twitter against football players in the 2021-22 Premier League Season. You can read more on this report here: Tracking abuse on Twitter against football players in the 2021-22 Premier League Season | The Alan Turing Institute

In this episode, hosts Bea and Anneca are joined by Robert Blackwell, from CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science), who tells us, among many other things, how an algorithm to detect different species of plankton developed in two weeks during a Turing DSG ended up being deployed six months later on a ship.

This week we welcome Dr Miguel Arana-Catania and Professor Rob Procter from the University of Warwick, along with Dr Felix-Anselm van Lier from Oxford University. The episode discusses their recent work in using machine learning to analyze large-scale peace dialogue transcripts from the war in Yemen, with the aim to assist conflict mediators.

This week the hosts are joined by David Beavan, a Senior Research Software Engineer and Dr Kasra Hosseini a Research Data Scientist, both of whom work in the Alan Turing Institute’s Research Engineering Group. The episode focusses on one of The Alan Turing Institute’s major research projects in the Digital Humanities known as “Living with machines”, which takes a fresh look at the history of the industrial revolution with data driven approaches. Find out more at https://livingwithmachines.ac.uk/

In this episode Christina catches up with two of her former collaborators, Prithviraj Pramanik and Dr. Subhabrata Majumdar. The three of them worked as volunteers at Solve for Good (a platform to connect social good organizations with volunteer data scientists to solve socially beneficial challenges). The team discusses their work with UNICEF to build a post-pandemic global air pollution model to help map child exposure to harmful air pollutants.

This week Ed and Rachel speak with Geoff Goodell, Senior Research Associate in the Financial Computing and Analytics group at University College London, and associate of UCL’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies and the LSE systemic risk centre. Geoff is an advocate for privacy as a human right in the digital world, in particular with regard to digital identity systems. Recorded in mid-2021, this episode takes a deep dive into some of the important topics surrounding people’s identities in the online world, including both the technical and ethical considerations.

Ed & Rachel are joined by Dr Tim Hobson, Senior Research Software Engineer and resident Bitcoin enthusiast at The Alan Turing Institute! Tim offers his take on the phenomenon that is Bitcoin, the future of its adoption and how the underlying technology relates to his research interests.

The latest episode of the Turing Podcast features a special roundtable discussion with our strategic partner Accenture about career options in the data science sector. The latest episode of the Turing Podcast features a special roundtable discussion with our strategic partner Accenture about career options in the data science sector. Our hosts Jo Dungate and Bea Costa Gomes were joined by three influential figures in AI and data science - Henrietta Ridley (Data Science Manager at Accenture), Alice Aspinall (Senior Manager at Mudano), and Kirstie Whitaker (the Turing’s Director for the tools, practices and systems programme). Our guests brought their different experiences and perspectives to an insightful discussion on various aspects of the data science industry, from how they first got into their fields, their career motivations and lessons learned along the way. The episode concludes with each guest offering advice to anyone at the beginning of their career.

This week on The Turing Podcast, the hosts chat with Dr James Geddes, who is a Principial Research Data Scientist in the Research Engineering Group at the Alan Turing Institute. The discussion revolves around an all-important question: What actually is AI? James breaks down three categories of computer programs that could be considered AI: Simulations, Symbolic AI and Machine Learning, and the hosts debate which, if any of these, are really intelligent! This week the podcast is hosted by Ed Chalstrey and introduces Christina Last.

In this episode we talk to Dr Nira Chamberlain, president of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. We talk with Nira about Black History Month, mathematicians though history that have inspired him, and how mathematics can cross racial, geographical and cultural boundaries.

The hosts were joined by Dr. Nicol Turner Lee to discuss her research on public policy, designed to enable equitable access to technology and digital equity. We talk about themes in her recent book on the Digitally Invisible and the real-life consequences of the growing digital divide. Nicol Turner Lee is a speaker, author and technology innovator. As well as a senior fellow in Governance Studies and Director of the Centre for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, where she also serves as Co-Editor in Chief of the blog, Tech-Tank.

We chat about all things science communication with two Turing colleagues: Ethics Research Fellow Mhairi Aitken and Science Writer James Lloyd. They discuss why we need science communicators in the first place, what makes for good communication, and what specific challenges are associated with communicating data science and AI research to the general public.

This week on the podcast, we bring you a conversation the hosts had last December with PhD candidate Elizabeth Seger. Elizabeth studies at The University of Cambridge and is a research assistant at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence. Talking about her work with The Alan Turing Institute, she explains how informed decision making in democracies is being impacted by modern technology, and in particular how online misinformation has affected the pandemic response. Find out more about the research here: https://www.turing.ac.uk/blog/infodemics-and-crisis-response?_cldee=ZWNoYWxzdHJleUB0dXJpbmcuYWMudWs%3d&recipientid=contact-9b098e61071be911a974002248014773-9d06c72d733d47418edbfd23c7e38bcb&esid=2e510c56-7d14-eb11-a813-0022483ed0bb

In this episode hosts Jo Dungate and Rachel Winstanley speak to Andrew Holding, a Senior Research Associate at Cancer Research UK's (CRUK) Cambridge Institute and Turing Fellow. Andrew discusses how his research is using machine learning to understand the biology that underlies breast cancer to help improve treatments.

The hosts chat with to Professor Robert Foley, who works on Human Evolution at the University of Cambridge and is a Fellow of The Alan Turing Institute. The conversation takes a broad view of how our understanding of human evolution has changed in recent decades and focusses in on the Turing institute’s Palaeoanalytics project, which involves applying data science and machine learning methods to non-genomic data. Find out more about this project here: https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/palaeoanalytics

AI is widely lauded as a way of reducing the burden on human online content moderators. However, to understand whether AI could, and should, replace human moderators, we need to understand its strengths and limitations. In this episode our hosts speak to the researchers Paul Röttger and Bertie Vidgen to discuss how they are attempting to tackle online hate speech, in particular through their work on HateCheck - a suite of tests for hate speech detection models.

In an interview recorded last year, Jo & Ed are joined by Dr Omar A Guerrero, an Economist & Computational Social Scientist at The Alan Turing Institute & UCL Department of Economics, whose research focusses on economic behaviour and institutions from an interdisciplinary angle. The episode focusses on Policy Priority Inference (PPI); a technology developed in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme. PPI is intended to be used to optimise government policy to meet sustainable development goals and identify the policy priorities that governments need to set if they are to adopt a specific development strategy. Read more about the research discussed in this episode here: https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/research-projects/policy-priority-inference

This week on the podcast, the hosts are joined by Sören Mindermann & Mrinank Sharma who are PhD students from Oxford University. Mrinank works as part of Oxford's Future of Humanity Institute, whilst Sören is a member of Oxford Applied and Theoretical Machine Learning Group and the episode focuses on the research they've recently had published on inferring the effectiveness of government interventions against Covid-19, during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020. You can find the research article for this work here: https://science.sciencemag.org/content/371/6531/eabd9338

In this episode the hosts were joined by Professor Sue Black to discuss her inspirational life story and career, as well as the initiatives she has set up to encourage more women into the tech sector and her hopes for the future. Sue Black is a Professor of Computer Science and Technology Evangelist at Durham University, has set up initiatives such BCS women and the social enterprise Tech mums, to encourage more women into computing and has received an OBE for ‘Service to technology’. She was also instrumental in the campaign to save Bletchley Park.

This week the hosts chat with Dr Dan Stowell, senior researcher at Queen Mary University of London and fellow of The Alan Turing Institute, about his work on addressing climate change via creating high-coverage open dataset of solar photovoltaic installations in the UK. It also happens to be research that podcast host Ed was involved in as you'll hear! You can check out the paper on this topic, published in Nature Scientific Data here: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41597-020-00739-0

On this episode of the podcast, we are joined by Lord Robert Winston to talk about engaging with the public about the science of combatting Covid-19. Professor of Science and Society and Emeritus Professor of Fertility Studies at Imperial College London, Robert has also had an incredible career in television, presenting the BBC’s The Secret Life of Twins, Child of Our Time and the BAFTA award-winning The Human Body.  Professor Winston runs a research programme at the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology at Imperial College that aims to improve human transplantation. He has over 300 scientific publications about human reproduction and the early stages of pregnancy. He is also Chairman of the Genesis Research Trust – a charity which raised over £13 million to establish the Institute of Reproductive and Developmental Biology and which now funds high quality research into women’s health and babies.  

This week the hosts are joined by Professor Tim Hubbard, who is Head of the Department of Medical & Molecular Genetics at King’s College London, and Associate Director of Health Data Research UK in London, as well as being the Head of Genome Analysis at Genomics England. They discuss the recent success of Deep Mind's AlphaFold protein structure prediction software at the CASP14 competition and other developments from the worlds of health data science and genomics.    

On the first episode of season 2, we are joined by Alexander Tokarev, a very recent PhD graduate from the University of Manchester. Alex does research in Organizational Psychology, Personality Psychology, and Psychometrics. With a strong mathematical and statistical background, he applies these to psychology. He is here to tell us a little bit about modelling personality traits, in particular the ones known as the dark core.    Sound effects courtesy of Brand Name Audio