ntation. The use of AI has allowed his team to monitor crops on a larger scale as well as analyse vast amounts of data.
Professor Pantic offered an alternative use of machine learning, looking at using technology to monitor facial expression and interpret human behaviour to be able to diagnose depression and pain. This could be highly rewarding in future treatment of human behavioural diseases. Next up was Dr Faisal, addressing AI from a biologist’s point of view. He started by asking the audience why we had a brain- his answer: to specify future actions, in other words, movement. Using AI to help in movement by mimicking brain commands using eye tracking is fascinating research that could help disabled and paralysed people regain their independence.
Picture Left to right: Nasir Rajpoot, Aldo Faisal, Maja Pantic, Ji Zhou and Arathi Prasad. Photo credit Tabitha Jenkins.
We also heard about the opportunities of using AI in cancer diagnosis, potentially helping to modernise what Professor Rajpoot referred to as the ‘19th century current methods of diagnosis’. Professor Rajpoot spoke about the technology that would be able to analyse vast amounts of data, identifying potential cancerous tissue on a microscopic level and help predict reoccurrence. That rounded up the panellists leaving it open to questions.
Dr Prasad challenged whether perhaps AI had the potential to find new ‘creative’ solutions to old problems that humans missed, one example including drug administering across the blood-brain barrier, a problem that has troubled scientists for years. The potential is there was the main consensus. Professor Pantic made the important point that the results of AI are as good as the data put into the system to teach the machine. There are important considerations that need addressing in the future of AI, ‘machine learning technology is about the data that is put into the system, by the human, and therefore it is essential that the data set is diverse and large to ensure the technology remains un-bias’.
When opened to the audience, the questions came flooding in. One of my favourites was whether we should call AI, AI? Professor Pantic responded by acknowledging that AI is an umbrella, coving a range of different areas of research, including machine learning, network controlled systems, and many many more, you could use any name and the meaning wouldn’t change. The idea of ‘intelligence’ was also argued, can we call it artificial intelligence when the very meaning of intelligence is not wholly understood.
Another prominent question to me was whether AI would be the end of many jobs, a protuberant question to many. It was answered honestly by Faisal, ‘it is not about AI taking jobs, it is about using AI to off-load over worked people’, Pantic added ‘technology could extend our senses but cannot replace human skills’ we need to ‘move with AI and not against it’. Perhaps job recruitment will involve the willingness of people to work with AI and not without it, but I think we are all safe in our careers.
One of the closing comments from Professor Pantic neutralised a lot of worry associated with AI; ‘AI can only do as well as humans can do, we will not see the real-world terminator’.
Perhaps this discussion will have changed people’s opinion on or perceptions of AI. After the event The Biochemical Society decided to see what people thought about AI by hosting an opinions board. The enthusiasm and engagement was great to see.
Some of the comments from the activity hosted by The Biochemical Society. Thank you to the participating members of the public. Photo credit to James Brown and Tabitha Jenkins, The Biochemical Society.
Audience opinion remained mostly positive, perhaps expected at an AI themed event, but concerns remained, understandably, about the need for regulation and training. Perhaps this could be the topic of a future debate?
AI development needs to remain transparent for people to understand and remain behind the movement; without public understanding and support, AI will face a lot of resistance. One thing we can all agr