This article captures the key insights from an interview with Professor Mark Girolami, the first chief scientist of the Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

1. THE FUTURE ROLE OF AI AND THE UK
NATIONAL AI STRATEGY – INSIGHTS
FROM PROFESSOR MARK GIROLAMI

2. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
THE FUTURE ROLE OF AI AND THE UK NATIONAL AI
STRATEGY – INSIGHTS FROM PROFESSOR MARK GIROLAMI
This article captures the key insights from an interview with Professor
Mark Girolami, the first chief scientist of the Alan Turing Institute, the
UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

3. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
The UK Government recently announced its first-ever National AI Strategy – a 10-year
plan aimed at staking a place for the country among the world’s AI superpowers.
One organization that will help to turn the AI strategy into action will be the Alan
Turing Institute, which was set up in 2015 as a national research center for data
science and artificial intelligence. The institute takes its name from the highly
influential British mathematician and computer scientist. Among Turing’s many
notable achievements, he is considered to have played a crucial role in cracking Nazi
codes during the Second World War thanks to his development of the Enigma
Machine. In other words, the institute has big boots to fill!

4. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
The institute has just announced the appointment of Professor Mark Girolami as its first
chief scientist, and I had the pleasure to speak to him just as he is settling into the first few
days in the post. We discussed the plans that the institute is putting together to break new
boundaries in AI and data science, as well as some of the fascinating projects it has already
been involved with – including the world’s first 3d-printed bridge.
Girolami moves into the chief scientist role following a stint leading the institute’s program
in data-centric engineering. It was here that he oversaw the “datafication” of the 3D-printed
steel pedestrian bridge, which spans a canal in Amsterdam.
Much of this was made possible thanks to a £10 million investment from the Lloyds Register
Foundation.

5. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
He told me, "The institute has really been in 'start-up' mode since 2015 – it's been evolving
and developing, and it was clear that at this time, the appointment of a chief scientist who
would take responsibility for its overall scientific strategy and its execution … should come
into effect.
“The institute has this strapline which says we believe AI and data science will change the
world … I would argue that it already has changed the world; we are living in a world that
has been transformed because of AI technology that is driven by our ability to gather data
at levels we’ve never had before.”
Among the other projects that have already been undertaken at the institute are initiatives
to create AI-powered air traffic control systems for UK airports, and digital twin systems in
use by rail services and in aerospace design.

6. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
As with many research establishments in recent times, the institute, and Girolami,
found their focus diverted to tackling challenges posed by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The starting point for this was a repurposing of work that was being carried out with
the aim of monitoring and improving air quality in London. Video feeds and sensor
loops that were being used to monitor footfall in areas where particulate levels were
high were used to monitor compliance with lockdown and social distancing
regulations, which then allowed authorities such as Public Health England and
Transport for London to make interventions in order to improve rates of compliance,
with the eventual aim of reducing the overall spread of infection. These interventions
included widening footpaths and public throughfares, or moving bus stops when their
locations contributed to bottlenecking and the build-up of large groups in close
proximity to each other.

7. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Moving on from that, Girolami tells me, "That's just one project the Turing Institute has
played a role in over the last couple of years … what I’ll be doing in my first 100 days [as
chief scientist] is looking to see what are the global grand challenges that would really
benefit from world-leading expertise … from the data science and AI technologies.
“They will then form the ‘north star’ that will define everything we will do over the next five
to 10 years.”
So far, it’s fair to say that the UK has not done a great deal to establish itself as a global AI
superpower. DeepMind, the London-based deep learning specialists responsible for
creating the AI that beat a professional player of the board game Go, is probably the
nation’s best-known achievement – and that group has been a subsidiary of Google since
2014.

8. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
The government’s plan is clearly to change that – with a slice of the $13 trillion that it’s
predicted that AI will add to the global economy by 2030 being an obvious incentive.
Girolami tells me, "It's fantastic that the government has issued a national strategy,
there's also going to be another AI strategy coming from the [UK] Ministry of Defence,
so it’s absolutely clear that AI technology is going to be pervasive across the national
landscape. It’s certainly welcome, and what you’ll find in the strategy is the ambition
for the UK to be a technological powerhouse – that’s the phrase used – and that’s an
ambition that I and the Turing Institute share."

9. © 2021 Bernard Marr, Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
He's also aware, however that technology is only a part of the solution. The institute will
also be involved with the equally essential planning and thinking around ethical and
regulatory issues that it's essential we as a society get right if we want to benefit from AI.
“It’s absolutely clear that this is something that all undergraduates should take a course in –
the technology is the easy part … the structure, governance, legal aspects, ethical aspects,
political aspects … these are the hard part. That's one of the reasons why at the Alan Turing
Institute, we have programs on public policy, for example … how do we ensure the safety,
ethical characteristics of AI programs and their deployments, how do we ensure privacy,
security, provenance … are there inherent biases in the data that will then get propagated
into the AI technology … I think that’s the big rock we need to get the sledgehammers at
and keep working away at, and that’s how we’re going to see the big successes.”

10. © 2021 Bernard Marr , Bernard Marr & Co. All rights reserved
Bernard Marr is an internationally best-selling author, popular keynote speaker,
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