FRA’s report is titled Getting The Future Right and opens with some of the ways AI is already making lives better—such as helping with cancer diagnosis, and even predicting where burglaries are likely to take place.

“The possibilities seem endless,” writes Michael O’Flaherty, Director of the FRA, in the report’s foreword. “But how can we fully uphold fundamental rights standards when using AI?”

The FRA interviewed over a hundred public administration officials, private company staff, and a diverse range of experts, in a bid to answer that question.

With evidence of algorithms having biases which could lead to automating societal issues like racial profiling—it’s a question that needs answering if the full potential of AI is going to be unlocked for the whole of society.

O’Flaherty says:

“AI is not infallible, it is made by people – and humans can make mistakes. That is why people need to be aware when AI is used, how it works and how to challenge automated decisions. The EU needs to clarify how existing rules apply to AI. And organisations need to assess how their technologies can interfere with people’s rights both in the development and use of AI.

“We have an opportunity to shape AI that not only respects our human and fundamental rights but that also protects and promotes them.”

AI is being used in almost every industry in some form or another—if not already, it will be soon.

Biases in AI are more dangerous in some industries than others. Policing is an obvious example, but in areas like financial services it could mean one person being given a loan or mortgage compared to another.

Without due transparency, these biases could happen without anyone knowing the reasons behind such decisions—it could simply be because someone grew up in a different neighbourhood. Each automated decision has a very real human impact.

The FRA calls for the EU to:

• Make sure that AI respects ALL fundamental rights – AI can affect many rights – not just privacy or data protection. It can also discriminate or impede justice. Any future AI legislation has to consider this and create effective safeguards.
• Guarantee that people can challenge decisions taken by AI – people need to know when AI is used and how it is used, as well as how and where to complain. Organisations using AI need to be able to explain how their systems take decisions.
• Assess AI before and during its use to reduce negative impacts – private and public organisations should carry out assessments of how AI could harm fundamental rights.
• Provide more guidance on data protection rules – the EU should further clarify how data protection rules apply to AI. More clarity is also needed on the implications of automated decision-making and the right to human review when AI is used.
• Assess whether AI discriminates – awareness about the potential for AI to discriminate, and the impact of this, is relatively low. This calls for more research funding to look into the potentially discriminatory effects of AI so Europe can guard against it.
• Create an effective oversight system – the EU should invest in a more ‘joined-up’ system to hold businesses and public administrations accountable when using AI. Authorities need to ensure that oversight bodies have adequate resources and skills to do the job.

The EU has increased its scrutiny of “big tech” companies like Google in recent years over concerns of invasive privacy practices and abusing their market positions. Last week, AI News reported that Google had controversially fired leading AI ethics researcher Timnit Gebru after she criticised her employer in an email.

Google chief executive Sundar Pichai wrote in a memo: “We need to accept responsibility for the fact that a prominent black, female leader with immense talent left Google unhappily.

“It’s incredibly important to me that our black, women, and under-represented Googlers know that we value you and you do belong at Google.”

Gebru gave an interview to the BBC this week in which she called Google and big tech “institutionally racist”. With that in mind, the calls made in the FRA’s report seem especially important to heed.

You can download a full copy of the FRA’s report here.

(Photo by Guillaume Périgois on Unsplash)

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Data from Dealroom was used for the State of European Tech report. Dealroom defines deep tech as 16 fields: Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Big Data, Augmented Reality, Virtual Reality, Drones, Autonomous Driving, Blockchain, Nanotech, Robotics, Internet of Things, 3D Technology, Computer Vision, Connected Devices, Sensors Technology, and Recognition Technology (NLP, image, video, text, speech recognition).

In 2019, there was $10.2 billion capital invested in European deep tech. In 2020, that dropped to $8.9 billion:

I think it’s fair to say that 2020 has been a tough year for most people and businesses. Economic uncertainty – not just from COVID-19 but also trade wars, Brexit, and a rather tumultuous US presidential election – has naturally led to fewer investments and people tightening their wallets.

For just one example, innovative satellite firm OneWeb was forced to declare bankruptcy earlier this year after crucial funding it was close to securing was pulled during the peak of the pandemic. Fortunately, OneWeb was saved following an acquisition by the UK government and Bharti Global—but not all companies have been so fortunate.

Many European businesses will now be watching the close-to-collapse Brexit talks with hope that a deal can yet be salvaged to limit the shock to supply lines, prevent disruption to Europe’s leading financial hub, and help to build a friendly relationship going forward with a continued exchange of ideas and talent rather than years of bitterness and resentment.

The report shows the UK has retained its significant lead in European tech investment and startups this year:

Despite the uncertainties, the UK looks unlikely to lose its position as the hub of European technology anytime soon.

Investments in European tech as a whole should bounce back – along with the rest of the world – in 2021, with promising COVID-19 vaccines rolling out and hopefully some calm in geopolitics.

94 percent of survey respondents for the report stated they have either increased or maintained their appetite to invest in the European venture asset class. Furthermore, a record number of US institutions have participated in more than one investment round in Europe this year—up 36% since 2016.

You can find a full copy of the State of European Tech report here.

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British chip designer ARM’s technology is at the heart of most mobile devices. Meanwhile, Nvidia’s GPUs are increasingly being used for AI computation in servers, desktops, and even things like self-driving vehicles.

However, Nvidia was most interested in ARM’s presence in edge devices—which it estimates to be in the region of 180 billion.

Jensen Huang, CEO of Nvidia, said:

“ARM is an incredible company and it employs some of the greatest engineering minds in the world. But we believe we can make ARM even more incredible and take it to even higher levels.

We want to propel it — and the UK — to global AI leadership.”

There were concerns Nvidia’s acquisition would lead to job losses, but the company has promised to keep the business in the UK. The company says it’s planning to hire more staff and retain ARM’s iconic brand.

Nvidia is going further in its commitment to the UK by opening a new AI centre in Cambridge, which is home to an increasing number of exciting startups in the field such as FiveAI, Prowler.io, Fetch.ai, and Darktrace.

“We will create an open centre of excellence in the area once home to giants like Isaac Newton and Alan Turing, for whom key NVIDIA technologies are named.

Here, leading scientists, engineers and researchers from the UK and around the world will come to develop their ideas, collaborate and conduct their ground-breaking work in areas like healthcare, life sciences, self-driving cars, and other fields.”

The new centre will have five key features when it opens:

• ARM/Nvidia-based supercomputer – set to be one of the most powerful AI supercomputers in the world.
• Research Fellowships and Partnerships – Nvidia will use the centre to establish new UK-based research partnerships, expanding on successful relationships already established with King’s College and Oxford.
• AI Training – Nvidia will make its AI curriculum available across the UK to help create job opportunities and prepare “the next generation of UK developers for AI leadership”
• Startup Accelerator – With so many of the world’s most exciting AI companies launching in the UK, the Nvidia Inception accelerator will help startups succeed by providing access to the aforementioned supercomputer, connections to researchers from NVIDIA and partners, technical training, and marketing promotion.
• Industry Collaboration – AI is still in its infancy but will impact every industry to some extent. Nvidia says its new research facility will be an open hub for industry collaboration, building on the company’s existing relationships with the likes of GSK, Oxford Nanopore, and other leaders in their fields.

The UK is Europe’s leader in AI and the British government is investing heavily in ensuring it maintains its pole position. Beyond funding, the UK is also aiming to ensure it’s among the best places to run an AI company.

Current EU rules, especially around data, are often seen as limiting the development of European AI companies when compared to elsewhere in the world. While the UK will have to avoid being accused of doing a so-called “bonfire of regulations” post-Brexit, data collection regulations is likely an area which will be relaxed.

In the UK’s historic trade deal signed with Japan last week, several enhancements were made over the blanket EU-Japan deal signed earlier this year. Among the perceived improvements is the “free flow of data” by not enforcing localisation requirements, and that algorithms can remain private.

UK trade secretary Liz Truss said: “The agreement we have negotiated – in record time and in challenging circumstances – goes far beyond the existing EU deal, as it secures new wins for British businesses in our great manufacturing, food and drink, and tech industries.”

Japan and the UK, as two global tech giants, are expected to deepen their collaboration in the coming years—building on the trade deal signed last week.

Shigeki Ishizuka, Chairman of the Japan Electronics and Information Technology Industries Association, said: “We are confident that this mutual relationship will be further strengthened as an ambitious agreement that will contribute to the promotion of cooperation in research and development, the promotion of innovation, and the further expansion of inter-company collaboration.”

Nvidia’s investment shows that it has confidence in the UK’s strong AI foundations continuing to gain momentum in the coming years.

(Photo by A Perry on Unsplash)

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The research, titled AI Skills in the UK, shines a spotlight on some concerning issues.

For its UK report, Microsoft used data from a global AI skills study featuring more than 12,000 people in 20 countries to see how the UK is doing in comparison to the rest of the world.

Most notably, compared to the rest of the world, the UK is seeing a higher failure rate for AI projects. 29 percent of AI ventures launched by UK businesses have generated no commercial value compared to the 19 percent average elsewhere in the world.

35 percent of British business leaders foresee an AI skills gap within two years, while 28 percent believe there already is one (above the global average of 24%).

However, it seems UK businesses aren’t helping to prepare employees with the skills they need. Just 17 percent of British employees have been part of AI reskilling efforts (compared to the global figure of 38 percent.)

Agata Nowakowska, AVP EMEA at Skillsoft, said:

“UK employers will have to address the growing digital skills gap within the workforce to ensure their business is able to fully leverage every digital transformation investment that’s made. With technologies like AI and cloud becoming as commonplace as word processing or email in the workplace, firms will need to ensure employees can use such tools and aren’t apprehensive about using them.

Organisations will need to think holistically about managing reskilling, upskilling and job transitioning. As the war for talent intensifies, employee development and talent pooling will become increasingly vital to building a modern workforce that’s adaptable and flexible. Addressing and easing workplace role transitions will require new training models and approaches that include on-the-job training and opportunities that support and signpost workers to opportunities to upgrade their skills.” 

Currently, a mere 32 percent of British employees feel their workplace is doing enough to prepare them for an AI-enabled future (compared to the global average of 42%)

“The most successful organisations will be the ones that transform both technically and culturally, equipping their people with the skills and knowledge to become the best competitive asset they have,” comments Simon Lambert, Chief Learning Officer for Microsoft UK.

“Human ingenuity is what will make the difference – AI technology alone will not be enough.”

AI brain drain

It’s well-documented that the UK suffers from a “brain drain” problem. The country’s renowned universities – like Oxford and Cambridge – produce globally desirable AI talent, but they’re often swooped up by Silicon Valley giants who are willing to pay much higher salaries than many British firms.

In one example, a senior professor from Imperial College London couldn’t understand why one of her students was not turning up to any classes. Most people wouldn’t pay £9,250 per year in tuition fees and not turn up. The professor called her student to find out why he’d completed three years but wasn’t turning up for his final year. She found that he was offered a six-figure salary at Apple. 

This problem also applies to teachers who are needed to pass their knowledge onto the future generations. Many are lured away from academia to work on groundbreaking projects with almost endless resources, less administrative duties, and be paid handsomely for it too.

Some companies, Microsoft included, have taken measures to address the brain drain problem. After all, a lack of AI talent harms the entire industry.

Dr Chris Bishop, Director of Microsoft’s Research Lab in Cambridge, said:

“One thing we’ve seen over the past few years is: because there are so many opportunities for people with skills in machine learning, particularly in industry, we’ve seen a lot of outflux of top academic talent to industry.

This concerns us because it’s those top academic professors and researchers who are responsible not just for doing research, but also for nurturing the next generation of talent in this field.”

Since 2018, Microsoft has funded a program for training the next generation of data scientists and machine-learning engineers called the Microsoft Research-Cambridge University Machine Learning Initiative.

Microsoft partners with universities to ensure it doesn’t steal talent, allows employees to continue roles in teaching, funds some related PhD scholarships, sends researchers to co-supervise students in universities, and offers paid internships to work alongside teams at Microsoft on projects.

You can find the full AI Skills in the UK report here.

(Photo by William Warby on Unsplash)

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Clearview AI’s facial recognition system is used by over 2,200 law enforcement agencies around the world and even commercial businesses like Best Buy and Macy’s, according to a recent leak.

The EDPB has now ruled that any use of the service by law enforcement in Europe would “likely not be consistent with the EU data protection regime.”

Furthermore, the watchdog “has doubts as to whether any Union or Member State law provides a legal basis for using a service such as the one offered by Clearview AI.”

Clearview AI scrapes billions of photos from across the internet for its powerful system, a practice which has come under fire by privacy campaigners. “Common law has never recognised a right to privacy for your face,” Clearview AI lawyer Tor Ekeland argued recently.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) launched a lawsuit against Clearview AI last month after calling it a “nightmare scenario” for privacy.

“Companies like Clearview will end privacy as we know it, and must be stopped,” said Nathan Freed Wessler, senior staff attorney with the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Aside from the company’s practices, concerns have been raised about Clearview AI’s extensive ties with the far-right. Ekeland himself has gained notoriety as “The Troll’s Lawyer” for defending clients such as neo-Nazi troll Andrew Auernheimer.

Backlash over Clearview AI forced the company to announce it will no longer offer its services to private companies. The EU’s ruling will limit Clearview AI’s potential customers even further.

Concerns have grown in recent weeks about facial recognition services amid protests over racial discrimination. Facial recognition services have been repeatedly found to falsely flag minorities; stoking fears they’ll lead to automated racial profiling.

IBM and Amazon have both announced this week they’ll no longer provide facial recognition services to law enforcement and have called on Congress to increase regulation to help ensure future deployments meet ethical standards.

(Photo by Christian Lue on Unsplash)

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Writing in a FT editorial, Pichai said: “…there is no question in my mind that artificial intelligence needs to be regulated. It is too important not to.”

Few people debate the need for AI regulation but there are differing opinions when it comes to how much. Overregulation limits innovation while lack of regulation can pose serious dangers – even existential depending on who you listen to.

Pichai says AI is “one of the most promising new technologies” that has “the potential to improve billions of lives,” but warns of the possible risks if development is left unchecked.

“History is full of examples of how technology’s virtues aren’t guaranteed,” Pichai wrote. “The internet made it possible to connect with anyone and get information from anywhere, but also easier for misinformation to spread.”

Google is one of the companies which people have voiced concerns about given its reach and questionable record when it comes to user privacy. Pichai’s words today will offer some comfort that Google’s leadership wants sensible regulation to guide its efforts.

So far, Google has shown how AI can be used for good. A study by Google, published in science journal Nature, showed how its AI model was able to spot breast cancer in mammograms with “greater accuracy, fewer false positives, and fewer false negatives than experts.”

Governments around the world are beginning to shape AI regulations. The UK, Europe’s leader in AI developments and investments, aims to focus on promoting ethical AI rather than attempt to match superpowers like China and the US in other areas.

In a report last year, the Select Committee on Artificial Intelligence recommended the UK capitalises on its “particular blend of national assets” to “forge a distinctive role for itself as a pioneer in ethical AI”.

The EU, which the UK leaves at the end of this month, recently published its own comprehensive proposals on AI regulation which many believe are too stringent. The US warned its European allies against overregulation of AI earlier this month.

In a statement released by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the White House wrote:

“Europe and our allies should avoid heavy handed innovation-killing models, and instead consider a similar regulatory approach.

The best way to counter authoritarian uses of AI is to make sure America and our international partners remain the global hubs of innovation, shaping the evolution of technology in a manner consistent with our common values.”

Pichai refrains from denouncing either the White House’s calls for light AI regulation, or the EU’s plans for stringent rules. Instead, Pichai only calls for the need to balance “potential harms… with social opportunities.”

Google has certainly not been devoid of criticism over its forays into AI. The company was forced to back out from a Pentagon contract in 2018 called Project Maven over backlash about Google building AI technology for deploying and monitoring unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).

Following the decision to back out from Project Maven, Pichai outlined Google’s ethical principles when it comes to AI:

1. Be socially beneficial.
2. Avoid creating or reinforcing unfair bias.
3. Be built and tested for safety.
4. Be accountable to people.
5. Incorporate privacy design principles.
6. Uphold high standards of scientific excellence.
7. Be made available for uses that accord with these principles.

Pichai promised the company “will work to limit potentially harmful or abusive applications” and will block the use of their technology if they “become aware of uses that are inconsistent” with the principles.

Time will tell whether Google will abide by its principles when it comes to AI, but it’s heartening to see Pichai call for sensible regulation to help enforce it across the industry.

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While the news has gone somewhat under the radar given recent events, the Americans are concerned that overregulation may cause Western nations to fall behind the rest of the world.

In a statement released by the Office of Science and Technology Policy, the White House wrote:

“Europe and our allies should avoid heavy handed innovation-killing models, and instead consider a similar regulatory approach.

The best way to counter authoritarian uses of AI is to make sure America and our international partners remain the global hubs of innovation, shaping the evolution of technology in a manner consistent with our common values.”

The UK is expected to retain its lead as the European hub for AI innovation with vast amounts of private and public sector investment, successful companies like DeepMind, and world class universities helping to address the global talent shortage. In Oxford Insights’ 2017 Government AI Readiness Index, the UK ranked number one due to areas such as digital skills training and data quality. The Index considers public service reform, economy and skills, and digital infrastructure.

Despite its European AI leadership, the UK would struggle to match the levels of funding afforded to firms residing in superpowers like the US and China. Many experts have suggested the UK should instead focus on leading in the ethical integration of AI and developing sensible regulations, an area it has much experience in.

Here’s a timeline of some recent work from the UK government towards this goal:

• September 2016 – the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee published a 44-page report on “Robotics and Artificial Intelligence” which investigates the economic and social implications of employment changes, ethical and legal issues around safety, verification, bias, privacy, and accountability; and strategies to enhance research, funding, and innovation
• January 2017 – an All Party Parliamentary Group on Artificial Intelligence (APPG AI) was established to address ethical issues, social impact, industry norms, and regulatory options for AI in parliament.
• June 2017 – parliament established the Select Committee on AI to further consider the economic, ethical and social implications of advances in artificial intelligence, and to make recommendations. All written and oral evidence received by the committee can be seen here.
• April 2018 – the aforementioned committee published a 183-page report, “AI in the UK: ready, willing and able?” which considers AI development and governance in the UK. It acknowledges that the UK cannot compete with the US or China in terms of funding or people but suggests the country may have a competitive advantage in considering the ethics of AI.
• September 2018 – the UK government launched an experiment with the World Economic Forum to develop procurement policies for AI. The partnership will bring together diverse stakeholders to collectively develop guidelines to capitalise on governments’ buying power to support the responsible deployment and design of AI technologies.

Western nations are seen as being at somewhat of a disadvantage due to sensitivities around privacy. EU nations, in particular, have strict data collection regulations such as GDPR which limits the amount of data researchers can collect to train AIs.

“Very often we hear ‘Where are the British and European Googles and Facebooks?’ Well, it’s because of barriers like this which stop organisations like that being possible to grow and develop,” said Peter Wright, solicitor and managing director of Digital Law UK.

Dependent on the UK’s future trade arrangement with the EU, it could, of course, decide to chart its own regulatory path following Brexit.

Speaking to reporters in a call, US CTO Michael Kratsios said: “Pre-emptive and burdensome regulation does not only stifle economic innovation and growth, but also global competitiveness amid the rise of authoritarian governments that have no qualms with AI being used to track, surveil, and imprison their own people.”

In the same call, US deputy CTO Lynne Parker commented: “As countries around the world grapple with similar questions about the appropriate regulation of AI, the US AI regulatory principles demonstrate that America is leading the way to shape the evolution in a way that reflects our values of freedom, human rights, and civil liberties.

“The new European Commission has said they intend to release an AI regulatory document in the coming months. After a productive meeting with Commissioner Vestager in November, we encourage Europe to use the US AI principles as a framework. The best way to counter authoritarian uses of AI is to make America and our national partners remain the global hub of innovation, advancing our common values.”

A similar regulation to GDPR in California called CCPA was also signed into law in June 2018. “I think the examples in the US today at state and local level are examples of overregulation which you want to avoid on the national level,” said a government official.

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Retaining AI talent is difficult. AI News has already reported on academia’s struggle to keep researchers helping to equip the next generation with AI skills, but it’s not just the education industry which is suffering.

The main problem is the limited supply of AI talent, mixed with high demand, is causing eye-wateringly high salaries. Those who can afford to pay such salaries, predominantly large American tech giants, are poaching talent from around the world.

Another reason talent is leaving Europe is due to increasingly crippling regulations that aren’t so extensive in countries like the US, and practically nonexistent in China. In an industry like AI, where data is everything, researchers are often able to achieve more outside of Europe.

ELLIS has selected 17 cities in 10 European countries, and Israel, where it hopes to establish AI research institutes focused on societal impacts.

Each institute will start with around half a dozen researchers and will be provided with at least €1.7 million funding annually for the next five years. Overall, the project will spend around €220 million.

ELLIS was inspired by the Canadian Institute For Advanced Research (CIFAR) initiative. In fact, it was at the Neural Information Processing Systems (NeurIPS) conference in Vancouver last year when top European AI researchers decided to create ELLIS.

During this year’s NeurIPS, ELLIS also signed a letter of intent with CIFAR’s program on Learning in Machines and Brains.

Yoshua Bengio, a Turing Award winner and co-director of the program in Learning in Machines & Brains of the Canadian Institute for Advanced Studies (CIFAR), said: “We need a constructive discussion about ethical uses of AI, and a necessary prerequisite of this is that the highest level of AI research is done in open societies with humanist values such as those of Canada and the European countries.”

“We have already signed a letter of intent to collaborate with the scientists driving this exciting new European initiative, and look forward to jointly promoting open AI research at the highest quality level.”

A number of European companies have already stated their support of this initiative, including Audi, AVL, Bayer, Bosch, DeepMind, Greiner, Porsche, Siemens as well as US companies such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, NVIDIA, Qualcomm and the Canadian startup Element AI.

The first ELLIS institutes are expected to open in spring 2020.

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SIR has ranked global research and education institutions since 2009. The ranking is based on their performance and the number of articles they’ve published in highly-regarded publications.

In the field of AI, the UK ranks number one in Europe and fourth globally. Iran ranks number one in the Middle-East and is ninth overall among the 152 countries featured.

Here are the top 10 countries for AI in the latest SIR:

China is leading AI developments overall. The US is in second place and leads AI developments in the Western hemisphere.

Defense considerations

Despite widespread concern, it’s almost inevitable AI will increasingly creep into military applications. With that in mind, it’s hard not to consider ongoing tensions and how it might apply to future conflicts like those in the Middle-East.

Tensions with Iran, particularly with the US and UK, have been increasing in recent years – especially in the wake of American allegations that the Iranians haven’t been meeting their obligations under the nuclear deal reached in 2015. The US controversially pulled out of the treaty and imposed sanctions on the state.

Since then, a series of conflicts have occurred. An example of such a case where AI may play a key role in the future was Iran’s downing of a US drone in June.

AI superiority from the American side may have enabled the drone to take evasive action to avoid being shot down. On the other hand, AI technologies on the Iranian side could have automated the downing of any unauthorised aircraft.

Some have likened the race to AI superiority to the nuclear arms race so we can only hope it’s less devastating. However, increasing capabilities between new and age-old rivals won’t do anything to ease such concerns.

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AI overall could provide a 22 percent GDP boost worth millions to the UK economy, according to the research.

However, the report warns that firms which do not integrate AI into their day-to-day business risk around 20 percent of their cash flow today.

In separate research last year, McKinsey wrote:

“By 2030, the average simulation shows that some 70 percent of companies might have adopted at least one type of AI technology but that less than half will have fully absorbed the five categories [computer vision, natural language, virtual assistants, robotic process automation, and advanced machine learning].”

The UK is well-positioned to take advantage of AI and is the highest ranking country in Europe on McKinsey Global Institute’s AI Readiness Index. However, the country falls behind the US and China.

Productivity growth in the UK has been weak over the past decade. McKinsey and Quantumblack believe that adopting AI would provide a “welcome boost”.

The UK has become a hotspot for AI with global interest in companies such as DeepMind and Swiftkey. With leading universities, the UK also helps to fill the global skill shortage in artificial intelligence roles.

Helen Mayhew, COO at Quantumblack, said: “We need to be proactive in both the development and diffusion of AI technologies to stop the gap widening.

“The UK is well-positioned to take advantage of these opportunities, and so the potential rewards for businesses and society more broadly are significant.”

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