Trust and ethics are at the heart of the new artificial intelligence (AI) strategy for Scotland, published by the Scottish Government this week. The strategy sets out the basic principles that will guide the development of AI and the actions that need to be taken over the next five years. The overall vision set out is for Scotland to become "a leader in the development and use of trustworthy, ethical and inclusive AI". The aim is to look beyond the technology to the role of AI in society. It says: "Much of what we take for granted today happens because AI is working behind the scenes, driving change and technological innovation on an unprecedented scale. "However, the use and adoption of AI should be on our terms if we are to build trust between the people of Scotland and AI." AI is technology that allows computers to perform actions that would normally require human intelligence, such as speech recognition or decision-making. It can be used from everything from diagnosing diseases to predicting what products you might be interested in based on your previous choices to self-driving cars. However, the strategy points out there are "real risks and concerns" that need addressed. AI decision-making can only be as good as the data and the algorithms that have been fed into it, so there can be concerns of bias arising from data or design and a lack of transparency in decision-making. Among the principles set out in the strategy is that AI should benefit people and planet, that "AI systems should be designed in a way that respects the rule of law, human rights, democratic values and diversity, and they should include appropriate safeguards" and that it should be transparent. One key outcome of the strategy will be the creation of an'AI Playbook', which will be a practical guide to how AI is done in Scotland. Another outcome is the setting up of the Scottish AI Alliance to provide leadership in this area. Other actions set out in the strategy include community engagement to encourage non-tech businesses to adopt AI, establishing an'AI for good' programme to help solve some of the challenges facing the country, upskilling and reskilling of the workforce, and the development of new data platforms and registers of trusted algorithms. There will be annual reviews of progress at the end of each year. Finance secretary Kate Forbes said: "Artificial intelligence offers huge economic and social potential and with Scotland's long history of academic excellence in its development we are building on strong foundations.

The Data Lab has today released details of a new project using AI to assess and treat mesothelioma, or'asbestos cancer'. Scottish medical imaging software firm Canon Medical Research Europe and the University of Glasgow are set to publish clinical findings from a study evaluating a new cancer assessment tool, developed as part of the Cancer Innovation Challenge. A study team have created a prototype that can automatically find and measure mesothelioma on CT scans. These scans are then used by the trained AI to assess patient's response to drug treatments like chemotherapy. The AI was trained by showing it over 100 CT scans, on which an expert clinician had drawn around all areas of the tumour – showing the AI what to look for.

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Engineering giant Rolls-Royce has made an ethical artificial intelligence (AI) 'breakthrough', which it believes could contribute to gaining society's trust in the technology on the path to'Industry 5.0'. The firm has unveiled a workable, peer-reviewed AI ethics framework, which is a method that any organization can use to ensure the decisions it takes to use AI in critical and non-critical applications are ethical. The framework, which has been reviewed by several big tech firms -- as well as experts in the automotive, pharmaceutical, academic, and government sectors -- will be published under Creative Commons license this year. The framework includes a step-by-step process for ensuring the outcomes of AI algorithms can be trusted. A five-layer checking system focuses on the outputs of algorithms, not the algorithms themselves, which are constantly changing.

Scottish Enterprise, in collaboration with the Scottish Government, calls on innovative organisations to help solve the Climate Emergency by harnessing the power of Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning. The specific focus of this competition is in the use of AI to enable or significantly enhance products or processes that help to mitigate factors contributing to the climate emergency or to support adaptation to its impact. This 100% funded R&D SBRI project will provide up to 6 contracts of £28,000 over a 10 week period in phase 1 with up to £133,000 available for three successful phase 2 solutions over the following 12 months. They are seeking creative, cutting-edge proposals that can demonstrate the ability to support climate change mitigation and adaption. The competition seeks to encourage wide participation and with minimal prescription of the nature or focus of proposed ideas.

A national AI strategy is not just for the superpowers: while the US and China are battling it out for the future dominance in AI, smaller states are making their own plans to capitalize on the benefits of machine learning. The government of Scotland believes artificial intelligence technologies could add £13 billion to the county's economic output and improve quality of life for its citizens. For this reason, as part of its program for 2019-2020, Holyrood has just announced plans to develop a comprehensive roadmap aimed at maximizing the potential AI development. The task of shaping the strategy has been entrusted to The Data Lab, the state-sponsored innovation center for data and AI, opened in 2014. The final text is expected to launch in September 2020.

We're so excited to announce that world famous British astronaut and former International Space Station crew member, Tim Peake, will headline the Data Summit in Edinburgh as part of the UK's biggest data and artificial intelligence festival, DataFest. This year's key theme '#BeyondData' will focus on the impact data and AI has on the world and the future potential of the sector to help realise innovation across business and wider society, with a key focus on the challenges and opportunities data and AI presents. Now in its fourth year, DataFest has swiftly grown into a key calendar event for professionals working in the sector across the UK and further afield – attracting more than 4,000 visitors in 2019. The signing of Tim Peake marks our first major speaker announcement for the 2020 event, with more to follow in coming months. Famous for spending six months on the international space station, Tim completed approximately 3000 orbits of the earth, and covered a distance of 125 million kilometres.

The Data Lab has been officially appointed to lead on the development of a new national strategy for artificial intelligence in Scotland. As Scotland's innovation centre for data and AI, the organisation will spearhead the Scottish Government's ambition to use the technology to enhance wellbeing and unlock a potential £13bn in additional economic output. The strategy, which was publicly announced last month at a Scottish Council for Development and Industry (SCDI) conference in Edinburgh, will be created with'benefit to the citizen as its core guiding principle and will align with the Scottish Government's National Performance Framework's aims to improve citizen wellbeing and provide opportunities for all to thrive'. The stragety's development will be an open and transparent process, ensuring that as many people as possible are given the opportunity to contribute to its development. The process aims to ensure that AI is relatable to everyone and will consider its potential to improve the lives of people across Scotland by unlocking social and economic benefits.

As data scientists confront operational challenges that are slowing the transition of machine learning models to production, more vendors are stepping up with possible solutions for breaking up the logjam. The latest is data science platform vendor Domino Data Lab, which rolled out the latest release of its flagship LaunchPad module this week. The 3.0 version specifically addresses "last mile" data science hurdles to streamline the model deployment process while speeding up ongoing improvements to production models. Citing the slow rate of AI model utilization, Domino Data Lab and others are offering tools designed to bridge the gap between IT and DevOps teams. That is increasingly seen as the biggest operational challenge as data science teams struggle to push models to production.

Engineers at VW Group are working on the predictive capabilities stemming from analysis of large data volumes. At the Volkswagen Group IT Data Lab, a team is using human reasoning to analyse big data with the support of artificial intelligence. Their predictive analysis helps make many procedures and corporate processes even more efficient and sustainable, it is claimed. At the Data Lab, Volkswagen's competence center for artificial intelligence (AI) in Munich, a team of several experts is working on the data. "Our work is like a jigsaw puzzle," says Gabriele Compostella, an IT specialist.