Data Bites | Data and AI in the public sector

Laura Gilbert from the Tony Blair Institute has gone from particle physics to Downing Street, via medtech and a pandemic-era job with one main aim for the first six months: make an impact.

She discussed Philip Tetlock’s work on experts and prediction (and how they tend only to be slightly better than random), and how that helped her change the way she thought about and presented data to people.

She also talked about setting up the government’s Incubator for AI (i.AI), and how tools like Caddy can actually make government and other organisations more human and bring them closer to people.

Laura Gilbert takes question from the audience alongside host Gavin Freeguard

Alex Blandford introduces his presentation in front of a screen that reads "warning: this work is anthropological in nature"

You can’t API your way out of politics

Alex Blandford shows his qualitative research into civic technologists, painting them as “radicalised nerds” trying to fix broken systems.

Council Climate Action Scorecards

Isaac Beevor, and Alex Parsons talked about their work on measuring UK local authority climate action through their bi-annual Council Climate Action Scorecards.

Elliot Bridges answering questions from the audience

HFEA Dashboard

Elliot Bridges, Senior Data and Insights Analyst at the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority, talked about the HFEA’s (award-winning) dashboard, which allows users to explore fertility statistics.

Duncan Brown shows a graph on screen with the results of a survey showing that a majority of people feel that AI will impact them either negatively or neutrally.

Data and AI Federation

Duncan Brown, head of software engineering at the Incubator for AI (i.AI), explored what a federated approach to data sharing, access and use might look like