Sponsored
Sponsored content is premium paid-for content produced by the Irish Times Content Studio on behalf of commercial clients. The Irish Times newsroom or other editorial departments are not involved in the production of sponsored content.

Making safe AI work for us: ‘Ireland’s approach is to make it work for society and not leave people behind’

Ciarán Seoighe, deputy director general of Science Foundation Ireland, is optimistic that if we make the right decisions to make AI safe now, it will unlock great benefits

'AI can scan a person’s retina and tell with 80 per cent probability if they are male or female and their chances of having a heart attack within a certain time period. It can do that by seeing patterns that humans can’t.' Photograph: Francesco Carta/Getty Images

Thu May 16 2024 - 05:00

Artificial Intelligence (AI) has the potential to transform for the better the way we live and work. Unfortunately, it also has the power to undermine jobs and livelihoods, manipulate human behaviour, and much else besides.

Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) deputy director general Ciarán Seoighe takes a more optimistic view, but believes good outcomes won’t necessarily happen by themselves. “The future of AI is not pre-determined, and it’s the decisions that we as societies and governments around the world make that will ensure it’s the future we want,” he says.

He notes the range of views on the issue. “They vary from the utopian to the dystopian. One of the godfathers of AI, Professor Geoffrey Hinton, is quite dystopic in his outlook. In his best case scenario, you will have a dumb CEO with an intelligent AI-powered assistant which is really running things. In his worst case scenario, he doesn’t see a role for humanity at all in the future.”

Ireland’s approach is to make AI work for society and not leave people behind

The negative aspects of AI are not in dispute. “Bad actors are using it to enhance their cyber-attack capabilities,” says Seoighe. “There is major concern about AI-created deep fakes, as well as soft fakes which politicians and celebrities are using to enhance their reputations.”

READ MORE

While acknowledging the concerns as legitimate, Seoighe believes the outcomes are by no means certain. “These discussions have happened with each new wave of technology,” he points out. “But each time, the technology has pushed humanity further up the value chain. I believe it will be no different on this occasion. There is very much a role for humanity. As Stuart Russell has pointed out, our job is to make safe AI now rather than make it safe later. We need to build in safety now. The technology is what we make of it and how we shape it. We have to do it responsibly and do it right.”

Ciaran Seoighe, deputy director general, Science Foundation Ireland: 'The future of AI is not pre-determined.'

And getting it right will unlock vast benefits. “The opportunities are huge,” Seoighe says. “They include advances in medical care where AI can scan a person’s retina and tell with 80 per cent probability if they are male or female and their chances of having a heart attack within a certain time period. It can do that by seeing patterns that humans can’t.”

At another level, the power of the technology can be used to bring knowledge together in new ways. “There is a real prospect of accelerated scientific discovery. More than 10,000 scientific papers are published each day and there are quite possibly new discoveries out there if you could combine all of those papers. This could deliver new solutions to pressing challenges like climate change.”

There are huge opportunities for companies in Ireland to develop AI capability, but they need talent

But those things need to be done safely as well, and Seoighe is playing a role in international efforts in that regard. “Rishi Sunak held an AI safety summit in Bletchley Park in England late last year,” he says. “Thirty-two countries along with the EU and the UN took part. Ireland was there alongside China, the US and other leading nations. I was Ireland’s representative to communicate the government’s view on and expectations of AI. I am also a member of the expert group set up by the summit to work on an AI safety report.”

Meanwhile, the EU AI Act will regulate the use of the technology. “It takes a very clever tiered risk approach to how we regulate AI,” he notes. “Ireland’s approach is to make it work for society and not leave people behind. AI research has been carried out here for a long time. We also have a lot of companies developing AI and using it directly and indirectly.

“That work is going to require a lot of PhD students and graduates, and that underlines the importance of long term investment. You can’t just find people with expertise in AI overnight. It’s a bit like Covid-19, you don’t suddenly have immunologists available in the country. Decades of investment went into that.”

SFI has been making that investment by funding AI research as well as through its Centres for Research Training (CRT) programme. The CRTs are training postgraduate students as they carry out their PhD research, to ensure that they build the foundation skills needed to address the future challenges of an ever-changing work environment. A number of CRTs specifically focus on AI and related fields including machine earning enhanced reality, and data science.

“There are huge opportunities for companies in Ireland to develop AI capability, but they need talent,” Seoighe concludes. “That talent will come from long-term investment in research and in the training of researchers. That will give us the base we need to capitalise on the opportunities and to do it in a safe way.”

LATEST STORIES