According to a study conducted by BSI, 54 percent of UK respondents expressed excitement about AI’s potential to revolutionise medical diagnoses and 43 percent welcomed AI’s role in reducing food waste. However, there is a prevailing lack of trust.

This scepticism could hinder the integration of AI technologies in the NHS, which is currently grappling with challenges like the COVID-19 backlog and an ageing population. Almost half of Britons (49%) support the use of AI to alleviate pressure on the healthcare system and reduce waiting times. However, only 20 percent have more confidence in AI than humans in detecting food contamination issues.

The study also highlighted a pressing need for education, as 65 percent of respondents felt patients should be informed about the use of AI tools in diagnosis or treatment. 37 percent of respondents expect to use AI regularly in medical settings by 2030.

Craig Civil, Director of Data Science and AI at BSI, said:

“The magnitude of ways AI can shape the UK’s future means we are seeing some degree of hesitation of the unknown. This can be addressed by developing greater understanding and recognition that human involvement will always be needed if we are to make the best use of this technology, and by ensuring we have frameworks that are in place to govern its use and build trust.

Now is the moment for the UK to collaborate to balance the great power of this tool with the realities of actually using it in a credible, authentic, well-executed, and well-governed way.

Closing the confidence gap and building the appropriate checks and balances can enable us to make not just good but great use of AI in every area of life and society.”

60 percent believed consumers needed protections regarding AI technologies. The study also revealed that 61 percent of Britons are calling for international guidelines to ensure the safe use of AI. This demand reflects a global sentiment, with 50 percent of respondents highlighting the need for ethical safeguards on patient data use.

Harold Pradal, Chief Commercial Officer at BSI, commented:

“AI is a transformational technology. For it to be a powerful force for good, trust needs to be the critical factor. There is a clear opportunity to harness AI to drive societal impact, change lives, and accelerate progress towards a better future and a sustainable world.

Closing the AI confidence gap is the first necessary step, it has to be delivered through education to help realise AI’s benefits and shape Society 5.0 in a positive way.”

The study’s findings are a call to action for the UK, urging collaboration and the establishment of frameworks to govern AI’s use.

The UK Government, recognising the importance of safe AI implementation, is set to host a global AI Safety Summit at the historic Bletchley Park on 1-2 November 2023. BSI is an official partner for the much-anticipated event.

(Photo by Suad Kamardeen on Unsplash)

See also: UK reveals AI Safety Summit opening day agenda

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The vision was set out by UK Foreign Secretary James Cleverly and calls upon international partners to collaborate and coordinate their efforts in harnessing AI for development in Africa and making progress towards the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals.

As part of its efforts, the UK is launching the ‘AI for Development’ programme in partnership with Canada’s International Development Research Centre (IDRC). The primary focus of this initiative is to assist developing countries, primarily in Africa, in building local AI capabilities and fostering innovation.

The announcement coincides with the UK’s co-convening of an event on AI during the margins of the UN General Assembly. This high-level session – chaired by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken – will assemble governments, tech companies, and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) to explore how AI can expedite progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals. These goals aim to create a healthier, fairer, and more prosperous world by 2030.

In parallel with these efforts, the UK is committing £1 million in investment towards a pioneering fund known as the Complex Risk Analytics Fund (‘CRAF’d’). This fund, in collaboration with international partners, will harness the power of AI to prevent crises before they occur. Additionally, it will provide assistance during emergencies and support countries in their recovery towards sustainable development.

Foreign Secretary James Cleverly said:

“The opportunity of AI is immense. It has already been shown to speed up drug discovery, help develop new treatments for common diseases, and predict food insecurity—to name only a few uses.

The UK, alongside our allies and partners, is making sure that the fulfilment of this enormous potential is shared globally.

As AI continues to rapidly evolve, we need a global approach that seizes the opportunities that AI can bring to solving humanity’s shared challenges. The UK-hosted AI summit this November will be key to helping us achieve this.”

Julie Delahanty, President of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC), expressed her satisfaction with the collaboration between IDRC and the UK Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office (FCDO).

“IDRC is pleased to announce a new collaboration with FCDO, a key ally in tackling the most pressing development challenges,” said Delahanty.

“The AI for Development program will build on existing partnerships, leveraging AI’s capacity to reduce inequalities, address poverty, improve food systems, confront the challenges of climate change and make education more inclusive, while also mitigating risks.”

This announcement underscores the broader commitment of the UK to employ AI innovation to tackle global challenges, including the pursuit of the Sustainable Development Goals.

In a separate event, scheduled for 1-2 November 2023, the UK will host the world’s first major AI Safety Summit at the historic Bletchley Park in Buckinghamshire. This summit aims to garner international consensus on the urgent need for safety measures in cutting-edge AI technology.

See also: White House secures safety commitments from eight more AI companies

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The comprehensive event is co-located with Digital Transformation Week.

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The geospatial model, built from NASA’s satellite data, will be the largest of its kind on Hugging Face and marks the first-ever open-source AI foundation model developed in collaboration with NASA.

Jeff Boudier, head of product and growth at Hugging Face, highlighted the importance of information sharing and collaboration in driving progress in AI. Open-source AI and the release of models and datasets are fundamental in ensuring AI benefits as many people as possible.

Climate science faces constant challenges due to rapidly changing environmental conditions, requiring access to the latest data. Despite the abundance of data, scientists and researchers struggle to analyse the vast datasets effectively. NASA estimates that by 2024, there will be 250,000 terabytes of data from new missions.

To address this issue, IBM embarked on a Space Act Agreement with NASA earlier this year—aiming to build an AI foundation model for geospatial data.

By making this geospatial foundation model openly available on Hugging Face, both companies aim to promote collaboration and accelerate progress in climate and Earth science.

Sriram Raghavan, VP at IBM Research AI, commented:

“The essential role of open-source technologies to accelerate critical areas of discovery such as climate change has never been clearer.

By combining IBM’s foundation model efforts aimed at creating flexible, reusable AI systems with NASA’s repository of Earth-satellite data, and making it available on the leading open-source AI platform, Hugging Face, we can leverage the power of collaboration to implement faster and more impactful solutions that will improve our planet.”

The geospatial model, jointly trained by IBM and NASA on Harmonized Landsat Sentinel-2 satellite data (HLS) over one year across the continental United States, has shown promising results. It demonstrated a 15 percent improvement over state-of-the-art techniques using only half the labelled data.

With further fine-tuning, the model can be adapted for various tasks such as deforestation tracking, crop yield prediction, and greenhouse gas detection.

IBM’s collaboration with NASA in building the AI model aligns with NASA’s decade-long Open-Source Science Initiative, promoting a more accessible and inclusive scientific community. NASA, along with other federal agencies, has designated 2023 as the Year of Open Science, celebrating the benefits of sharing data, information, and knowledge openly.

Kevin Murphy, Chief Science Data Officer at NASA, said:

“We believe that foundation models have the potential to change the way observational data is analysed and help us to better understand our planet.

By open-sourcing such models and making them available to the world, we hope to multiply their impact.”

The geospatial model leverages IBM’s foundation model technology and is part of IBM’s broader initiative to create and train AI models with transferable capabilities across different tasks.

In June, IBM introduced watsonx, an AI and data platform designed to scale and accelerate the impact of advanced AI with trusted data. A commercial version of the geospatial model, integrated into IBM watsonx, will be available through the IBM Environmental Intelligence Suite (EIS) later this year.

By leveraging the power of open-source technologies, this latest collaboration aims to address climate challenges effectively and contribute to a more sustainable future for our planet.

(Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash)

See also: Jay Migliaccio, IBM Watson: On leveraging AI to improve productivity

Want to learn more about AI and big data from industry leaders? Check out AI & Big Data Expo taking place in Amsterdam, California, and London. The event is co-located with Digital Transformation Week.

Explore other upcoming enterprise technology events and webinars powered by TechForge here.

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