AI and Machine Learning often address relatively monolithic challenges such as determining the safest route for an autonomous car or translating documents. While these problems are very important and worthwhile targets for AI research, there exists an alternative set of collective challenges that unfold in real time. These include:
- Minimising the impact of pandemics by coordinating local and national testing, social distancing, and vaccination efforts.
- Predicting and monitoring extreme weather events using multiple real-time physical and social data streams.
- Anticipating stock market crashes driven by interactions among automated trading agents following individual algorithms.
- Deriving city-wide mobility patterns from high-frequency time series data to inform sustainable city planning.
- Assisting populations with type 2 diabetes to prevent acute episodes and hospitalisation by identifying patterns in pooled disease trajectories while ensuring privacy.
Addressing these collective challenges requires developing AI systems capable of extracting reliable and informative patterns from overlapping data streams; controlling for biases; determining local interventions that can allow smart agents to influence collective systems in a positive way; developing privacy preserving machine learning and advancing ethical best practices for collective AI; and embedding novel machine learning and AI in portals, devices and tools that can be used transparently and successfully by different types of user.
The AI4CI Hub will address these challenges for AI in the context of critically important real world use cases (cities, pandemics, health care, environment and finance) working with key stakeholders from each sector.
In addition, the AI4CI Hub will create open-access training materials, tools, and best practice guidance to enhance capabilities and support the career development of early and mid-career researchers. Serving as a centre of gravity for national research efforts, the AI4CI Hub will apply innovative AI solutions to improve collective systems and address pressing societal challenges.