New Podcast & Blog: The Turing Connection to Scotland
We are pleased to launch our latest podcast - The Turing Connection to Scotland! It features James Turing, CEO and Founder of The Turing Trust and great-nephew of Alan Turing, in conversation with John Fotheringham, AI Policy Manager at the Scottish Government and member of the Scottish AI Alliance Support Circle.
And to complement the podcast, James has also written the blog below. Enjoy!
The Turing Connection to Scotland
Written by James Turing, CEO and Founder of The Turing Trust
It is great to see the development of Scotland’s AI Strategy and to see the incorporation of the Turing name in its podcast channel title, as the strategy encapsulates so many of the values that Alan stood for throughout his life. The Turing family has a long history with Scotland, our family tree can be traced back to 14th Century Aberdeenshire and it is in Edinburgh, where I studied at University, that I decided to start The Turing Trust.
Turing’s Triple Helix
Alan’s work spanned across academia, government and industry, long before the ‘triple helix’ model of innovation term that brings these together was coined. He worked at Cambridge and Princeton Universities and of course, his work at Bletchley Park during the war was a huge part of his career. However, his motivation never really seemed to come from profit, his vision for computing in general was to explore what could be gained from it, particularly for people. Scotland’s AI Strategy puts people at its core, not with a focus on the technology, but on how it can be used to benefit people and the planet. I think these are ideas that Alan would have been very much behind. He had a famous saying “We can only see a short distance ahead, but we can see plenty there that needs to be done,” and for the field of artificial intelligence (AI) I think this could not be more true.
AI has the potential to revolutionise the world in many ways, beyond removing mundane tasks from workers. For example, in medicine, there are opportunities to analyse data well beyond our current capabilities and even personalise it to a person's genome. However, it is vital that we look beyond the profit motive for how AI should be used to help build a fairer world where everyone has an opportunity to benefit from this next digital revolution.
Trustworthy, Ethical and Inclusive
Although AI is a relatively young field, it is growing fast and we can already see areas for concern. Machines learning gender biases or radial prejudice are examples of this. Ensuring that AI is trustworthy, ethical and inclusive is vital to ensuring that it is not used for nefarious purposes, but rather that it can benefit humanity. The tragic way in which Alan was treated really highlights the importance of inclusivity and a focus on inclusion is something I am sure he would admire. Alan was always way ahead of his time in terms of inclusion and equality and during his career he supervised several female postgraduate students in computer science.
Alan was often frustrated by the chain of command to reach government officials and believed that scientific knowledge should flow into government. There is a famous story of a time Alan wanted more resources and decided to skip the chain of command and with three of his colleagues wrote a letter directly to Winston Churchill. With this in mind, I think Alan would have really appreciated an organisation like the Scottish AI Alliance to create this bridge between science, government and AI in particular. I also think Alan would have welcomed the fact that it is truly inclusive and open to all - anyone can join the Alliance and contribute to conversations and work on AI in Scotland.
Today, Scotland and Beyond
One of the things the Alliance is working on is the Scottish AI Playbook, an open and practical guide to how we do AI in Scotland – and in taking this forward it is building on strong foundations. However, a bit like The Turing Trust, the Alliance is keen to reach out and work with partners internationally on shared opportunities and challenges. AI is a global phenomenon, with technologies developed in Scotland used around the world and vice versa, international research and development links, and multilingual conversations on how to harness AI in socially responsible ways.
AI offers great potential for Scotland and the rest of the world, but to fully realise this and ensure that no-one is left behind it is essential to put people first. For AI to be truly inclusive and benefit everyone, we need to secure people’s trust in it and be clear on its role in our society. Taking inspiration from Alan’s famous saying above, we all have a part to play in helping to shape the dynamic and exciting phenomenon that is AI – we can see plenty there that needs to be done.