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Machine learning: Call for evidence

Evidence is currently being gathered to inform the project; in particular evidence is being sought in response to the following questions:

  1. How important do you think machine learning will be for you and / or society in the next 10 years?
  2. What applications of machine learning have the most potential to benefit UK society in the next 10 years? 
  3. What are the biggest risks that the technology presents? What needs to be done to manage them in the next 10 years?
  4. What are the:
    a. scientific and technical;
    b. legal;
    c. regulatory;
    d. societal; and
    e. ethical challenges of machine learning?
  5. What should the priorities be for Government in setting the framework for the development and use of Machine learning?
  6. Which areas of the technology have the most potential for development by UK organisations? What are the UK’s machine learning strengths?
  7. What are the barriers to the UK exploiting machine learning and the opportunities it presents?
  8. Which are the leading industry sectors / organisations that are using machine learning?
  9. Which sectors / operations could benefit from machine learning but aren’t fully exploiting it at the moment?
  10. What is or will be the UK population’s views of machine learning technology?
  11. Are you aware of any activities which are of relevance to this project, for example, market research or public engagement exercises which cover machine learning?
  12. What questions do you have about machine learning?

Guidelines for submitting evidence 

  • Please refer to the project scope and questions above when drafting evidence. You do not need to answer all questions.
  • Evidence should be submitted in Word document format, rather than PDF, to machinelearning@royalsociety.org. [NB: all written evidence will be published on our project web pages at the time of report publication]
  • Evidence should be submitted by Sunday 3 January 2016.
  • Evidence should not exceed 2,000 words, and should be backed up by references wherever possible.
  • Please identify any knowledge gaps and provide case studies to illustrate the evidence.

What will happen next?

Evidence submitted will be analysed by Royal Society Science Policy Centre staff and working group members and used to inform the project conclusions and recommendations.  All written evidence will be published on the project web pages when the final report is published in early 2017.

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