Introduction
The Alan Turing Institute is partnering with the Nuffield Foundation on the Ada Lovelace Institute, launching in 2018, to examine the profound ethical and social issues arising from the use of data, algorithms and artificial intelligence, and to ensure they are harnessed for social well-being.
Project aims
The Nuffield Foundation recently announced the Ada Lovelace Institute, which is being set up to examine the profound ethical and social issues arising from the use of data, algorithms and artificial intelligence, and to ensure that they are harnessed for social well-being. The Turing is proud to be a founding partner of the new Institute and to participate in its important work. In addition to the Turing, the other contributing partners are the Royal Statistical Society, the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the Wellcome Trust, the Royal Society, the British Academy, techUK and Omidyar Network’s Governance & Citizen Engagement Initiative.
We intend to support the new Institute by providing the full weight of our experience and expertise in the ethical, social, and political implications of data and AI. Insights will be drawn from our multidisciplinary community of academic researchers, as well as from our array of strategic partnerships where appropriate.
When the Ada Lovelace Institute was announced, Alan Wilson, Director, Special Projects at the Turing and Chair of the Ada Lovelace Institute, said:
“As the national institute for data science and artificial intelligence, we at The Alan Turing Institute are committed to ensuring that the social and ethical implications of these transformative technologies are fully understood, and that the benefits they accrue can be shared across society. This will require ethical frameworks that keep pace with rapid innovations in the use of data and artificial intelligence, and we are delighted to support the Ada Lovelace Institute in this urgent and important work.
“A particular privilege of working at The Alan Turing Institute is our ability to honour the life and legacy of Alan Turing through our ground-breaking data science and AI research. Perhaps the most important lesson of this legacy is the impact that technology can have on society. Turing himself was influenced by Ada Lovelace, so it is a fitting tribute that this new Institute will take the name of another historical figure who played such an important role in the development of the technologies we all benefit from today.”