Title: Mind the gap: bridging innovation’s supply and demand in the AI era
Organiser: Bennett Institute for Public Policy & the Department of Politics and International Studies
Location: Auditorium Fitzwilliam College Storey’s Way, Cambridge, CB3 0DG
Summary:
Prof Neil Lawrence, inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge, will deliver this year’s Annual Public Policy Lecture: Mind the Gap: Bridging Innovation’s Supply & Demand in the AI Era.
Despite its transformative potential, artificial intelligence risks following a well-worn path where technological innovation fails to address society’s most pressing problems. The UK’s experience with major IT projects shows this disconnect: from the Horizon scandal’s wrongful prosecutions to the £10 billion failure of the NHS Lorenzo project. These weren’t only technical failures but a failure to bridge between needs and the provided solution, a failure to match supply and demand.
This misalignment persists in AI development: in 2017, the Royal Society’s Machine Learning Working group conducted research with Ipsos MORI to explore citizens’ aspirations for AI. It showed strong desire for AI to tackle challenges in health, education, security, and social care, while showing explicit disinterest in AI-generated art. Yet seven years later, while AI has made remarkable progress in emulating human creative tasks, the demand in these other areas remains unfulfilled.
This talk examines this persistent gap through a lens that’s inspired by innovation economics. We argue that traditional market mechanisms have failed to map macro-level interventions to the micro-level societal needs. We’ll explore why conventional approaches to technology deployment continue to fall short and propose radical changes needed to ensure that AI truly serves citizens, science, and society.
This lecture is hosted by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy and the Department of Politics and International Studies.
Speakers:
Neil Lawrenceis the inaugural DeepMind Professor of Machine Learning at the University of Cambridge where he leads the University’s flagship mission on AI, AI@Cam. He has been working on machine learning models for over 25 years. He returned to academia in 2019 after three years as Director of Machine Learning at Amazon. His main interest is the interaction of machine learning with the real world. This interest was triggered by deploying machine learning in the African context, where ‘end-to-end’ solutions are normally required. This has inspired new research directions at the interface of machine learning and systems research, this work is funded by a Senior AI Fellowship from the Alan Turing Institute. Neil is also visiting Professor at the University of Sheffield and the co-host of Talking Machines. He is the author of the forthcoming book The Atomic Human (release date 6th June 2024).
Dennis C. Grube is Professor of Politics and Public Policy at the University of Cambridge, research lead in political decision-making at the Bennett Institute for Public Policy, and course director of the MPhil in Public Policy. His research interests include political decision-making, administrative leadership, institutional memory, and the role of political rhetoric in public policy.
