Silicon Valley Bank, which has helped fund more than 30,000 startups, yesterday released a report on "The Future of Robotics: An Inside View on Innovation in Robotics." It described trends in production, business models, and the adoption of robotics reflecting the increasing maturity of Industry 4.0. The report also addressed concerns about automation displacing jobs and public-policy reactions. Overall, the free Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) report (download PDF) was cautiously optimistic about the prospects for industrial automation. It cited rising U.S. productivity, maturing technologies and suppliers supporting a variety of applications, and a steady climb for robotics deployments, particularly in Asia.

Originally posted on The Horizons Tracker. As artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed at quite a pace in recent years, it is inevitable that governments have tried to get a handle on things and better understand how it might influence society. For instance, I wrote recently about a report by the British government's Science & Technology Select Committee into AI, which looked at a number of topics, from ethics to employment. Hot on the heels of this is another British government report, this time from the office of the Chief Scientific Advisor. It examines the increasingly blurred lines between big data and AI, and particularly the benefits of this for the state.

As artificial intelligence (AI) has progressed at quite a pace in recent years, it is inevitable that governments have tried to get a handle on things and better understand how it might influence society. For instance, I wrote recently about a report by the British government's Science & Technology Select Committee into AI, which looked at a number of topics, from ethics to employment. Hot on the heels of this is another British government report, this time from the office of the Chief Scientific Advisor. It examines the increasingly blurred lines between big data and AI, and particularly the benefits of this for the state. For instance, it highlights that governments could secure enormous savings by utilizing both to reduce tax fraud and minimize errors in tax collection.

For instance, there is legislation that governs the use of citizen data by analysts and policy makers to ensure that privacy is maintained and equal treatment is given to all. This is a crucial aspect of public service, and there have been numerous stories about the implicit bias in AI systems, whether because of biased data used to train the systems, or a bias in the algorithms behind them. For AI to thrive in public service therefore, developers need to understand these legal frameworks and how they might apply to AI based decision support.