Research Horizons
Pioneering research from the University of Cambridge
Issue 35
Spotlight Artificial intelligence
Feature Tree-ring timelines
Feature Epic poetry www.cam.ac.uk/research Issue 35, February 2018 2 Contents
Contents
News Things
4 – 5 Research news 18 – 19 Kettle’s Yard
Features Spotlight: Artificial intelligence
6 – 7 Pani, Pahar: waters of the mountains 20 – 21 Living with AI
8 – 9 Epic issues 22 – 23 The uncertain unicycle that taught itself
10 – 11 Taking a moon shot at cystic fibrosis 24 – 25 “Robots can go all the way to Mars...”
12 – 13 Lord of the rings 26 – 27 What’s next for thinking machines?
14 – 15 “Little robots”: behind the scenes at an academy school 28 – 29 From Homer to Hal: 3,000 years of AI narratives
16 – 17 The body in miniature 30 – 31 The malicious use of AI
3 Research Horizons
Welcome
32 – 33 Needles and haystacks: AI in criminology Almost everywhere I turn, I see the transformative potential of artificial intelligence (AI) being promoted, so it is very timely that 34 – 35 In tech we trust? it is a focus of this issue of Research Horizons. Some of the researchers featured here are among AI experts 36 – 37 The Cambridge Cluster and AI worldwide who have signed an open letter affirming the benefits of the technology and urging caution in its development. In essence, they said: “AI systems must do what we want them to do.” This Cambridge Life Enabling enormous promise whilst stewarding progress is a complex balance. It requires engineers, computer scientists and mathematicians to build systems that learn from data, 38 – 39 The archaeologist who started her own dig aged seven and that think both like humans and unlike humans; it requires experts in fields as different as climate science and criminology to develop innovative uses of these machines that learn; and it requires researchers to pose new questions about safety, trust, transparency, security and privacy in an algorithm-rich world. Cambridge has strengths in machine learning, robotics and applications of AI technologies. Not only is research aimed at maximising the impact of AI, it is also aimed at understanding how we can ensure that the technology benefits humanity. This has been helped by two new research institutes – the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence and the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk – as well as being a founding partner in The Alan Turing Institute. These developments are indeed timely. In November 2017, the UK government’s Industrial Strategy set out four Grand Challenges, one of which was to put the UK at the forefront of the AI and data revolution. In this issue, we look at some of the areas in which Cambridge AI researchers are making a significant impact, as well as consider some of the benefits for academics and industry of being within the ‘Cambridge Cluster’. Elsewhere in this varied edition of Research Horizons, we cover a major boost for cystic fibrosis research, an epic analysis of epic poetry and Cambridge’s first dedicated tree-ring laboratory. We hope you enjoy these and other articles in this issue.
Professor Chris Abell Pro-Vice-Chancellor for Research
Editor Dr Louise Walsh
Editorial advisors Dr Mateja Jamnik, Dr Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Dr Beth Singler, Dr Adrian Weller
Design The District
T +44 (0)1223 765 443 E [email protected] W cam.ac.uk/research
Copyright ©2018 University of Cambridge and Contributors as identified. The content ofResearch Horizons, with the exception of images and illustrations, is made available for non-commercial re-use in another work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Non-Commercial-ShareAlike Licence (http://creativecommons.org/ licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/), subject to acknowledgement of the original author/s, the title of the individual work and the University of Cambridge. This Licence requires any new work with an adaptation of content to be distributed and re-licensed under the same licence terms. Research Horizons is produced by the University of Cambridge’s Office of External Affairs and Communications. 4 News
News
Newton’s papers added to UNESCO register
Annotated copies of Principia Mathematica and other papers of Sir Isaac Newton are now among materials preserved for the world.
Held at Cambridge University Library, Newton’s scientific and mathematical papers represent one of the most important archives of scientific and intellectual work on universal phenomena. They document the development of his thoughts on gravity, calculus and optics, and reveal ideas worked out through painstaking experiments, calculations, correspondence and revisions. £85 million gift Image Now, Newton’s Cambridge papers join Ray Dolby Centre, other papers deemed of global importance for physics due to open in 2022 Credit: Jestico + Whiles on the register of UNESCO’s Memory of the World Project, an international initiative Cambridge receives the largest established to expand research capability that aims to “safeguard the documentary philanthropic donation ever made to UK and expertise. heritage of humanity against collective science from the estate of Ray Dolby, “The University of Cambridge played amnesia, neglect, the ravages of time the man “who changed the way the a pivotal role in Ray’s life, both personally and climatic conditions, and wilful and world listened”. and professionally,” adds Dolby’s widow, deliberate destruction”. Dagmar. “At Cambridge and at the The papers include Newton’s own The Dolby family gift will support Cavendish, he gained the formative copy of the first edition of the Principia Cambridge’s Cavendish Laboratory, the education and insights that contributed (1687), covered with his revisions world-leading centre for physics research greatly to his lifelong ground-breaking and additions for the second edition; where Ray Dolby received his PhD in creativity, and enabled him to start his his ‘Laboratory Notebook’, which 1961. He went on to invent the Dolby business.” includes details of his investigations to System, an analogue audio encoding The new Cavendish Laboratory will understand the nature of colour; and system that forever improved the quality also receive a £75 million investment from his undergraduate notebook listing of recorded sound. the government through the Engineering expenditure on white wine, wafers, “This unparalleled gift is a fitting tribute and Physical Sciences Research Council. shoestrings and ‘a paire of stockings’. to Ray Dolby’s legacy, who changed the “This generous £85 million donation Isaac Newton entered Trinity College way the world listened – his research from the Ray Dolby estate along with as an undergraduate in 1661 and became paved the way for an entire industry,” says the £75 million government has already a Fellow in 1667. In 1669, he became Cambridge’s Vice-Chancellor Professor pledged is a testament to the importance Lucasian Professor of Mathematics in Stephen Toope. “A century from now, we of this facility and the UK’s leadership in Cambridge, a position he held until 1701. can only speculate on which discoveries science,” says former Science Minister “Newton’s work and life continue to will alter the way we live our lives, and Jo Johnson. “The UK is one of the most attract wonder and new perspectives which new industries will have been born innovative countries in the world, and on our place in the Universe,” says in the Cavendish Laboratory, in large part through our Industrial Strategy and Cambridge University Librarian Jess thanks to this extraordinarily generous gift.” additional £2.3 billion investment for Gardner. “Cambridge University Library A flagship building of the ongoing research and development we are will continue to work with scholars and Cavendish Laboratory redevelopment ensuring our world-class research base curators worldwide to make Newton’s will be named the Ray Dolby Centre, and goes from strength to strength for years papers accessible now and for future a Ray Dolby Research Group will be to come.” generations.”
News in brief 18.01.18 18.12.17
AI ‘scientist’ finds that an ingredient Mindfulness training can help support More information at commonly found in toothpaste could students at risk of mental health be employed as an anti-malarial against problems, concludes a randomised www.cam.ac.uk/research drug-resistant strains. controlled trial. 5 Research Horizons
Catching the memory thief
One of six centres that make up the UK Dementia Research Institute (DRI) has opened in Cambridge.
The UK DRI is a joint £250 million investment from the Medical Research Council, Alzheimer’s Society and Alzheimer’s Research UK, and is made up of centres in Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, King’s College, Imperial College London, and the operational hub at University College London. When complete, over 400 scientists will carry out an integrated programme of research across the DRI. Their mission is to find new ways to diagnose and treat people with dementias – a group of
neurodegenerative disorders that includes Unit Archaeological Cambridge Credit: Alzheimer’s disease – and also prevent their onset. These insidious diseases gradually and subtly steal a lifetime of memories, our ability to live independently “To Clapham’s I go” Image and eventually our lives. Some of the objects discovered “Dementia is now the leading cause Calf’s-foot jelly and a tankard of ale? in the cellar of death in England and Wales, and the Welcome to the 18th century Starbucks. number of people affected will only grow as the population ages,” says Professor Researchers have published details 1740s until the 1770s. It was popular with Giovanna Mallucci, Director of the newly of the largest collection of artefacts students and townspeople alike, and a opened Cambridge centre on the Cambridge ever discovered from an early English verse from a student publication of 1751 Biomedical Campus. “Here in Cambridge, our coffee house. The establishment, called attests to its importance as a social centre: focus is on using interdisciplinary approaches Clapham’s, was on a site now owned by “Dinner over, to Tom’s or Clapham’s I go; to understand the processes involved in the St John’s College, Cambridge. But in the the news of the town so impatient to know.” very earliest stages of neurodegeneration. mid-to-late 1700s, it was a bustling coffee The assemblage has now been used We want to identify targets that have the house – the contemporary equivalent, to reconstruct what a visit to Clapham’s greatest potential to stop ‘the memory thief’ academics say, of a branch of Starbucks. might have been like, and in particular before it does damage.” Researchers from Cambridge what its clientele ate and drank. The Archaeological Unit (CAU) – part of the discovery of 18 jelly glasses plus feet Film available: Department of Archaeology – uncovered a bones from immature cattle led the http://bit.ly/2o38zPT disused cellar that had been backfilled with researchers to conclude that calf’s-foot unwanted items, possibly at some point jelly, a popular dish of that era, might during the 1770s. Inside, were more than well have been a house speciality. 500 objects, many in a very good state of “Coffee houses were important preservation, including drinking vessels for social centres during the 18th century, tea, coffee and chocolate, serving dishes, but relatively few assemblages of clay pipes, animal and fish bones, and 38 archaeological evidence have been teapots. recovered,” says Craig Cessford, from Clapham’s was owned by William CAU. “This is the first time that we have and Jane Clapham, who ran it from the been able to study one in such depth.”
06.12.17 30.11.17 23.10.17
The fundraising campaign for the A £5.4 million Centre for Digital Built Stephen Hawking’s PhD thesis is University and Colleges passes the Britain will champion the use of digital made accessible via the University’s £1 billion mark, enabling Cambridge to technologies to plan, build, maintain Open Access repository – and over respond to challenges facing the world. and use infrastructure better. 1m people attempt to download it. 6 Feature PANI, PAHAR 7 Research Horizons
empty Falls is crowded with tourists who flock to the K nearby Himalayan hill station of Mussoorie during the summer months. This stunning beauty spot lies at the heart of a region beset by an escalating water crisis.
Mussoorie is fed by many different springs. But in recent years the demand for water has outstripped supply capacity in the summer season. Town authorities are facing increasing conflict from communities living outside the settlement who also demand their ‘share’ of water, such as the dhobi who have washed the town’s laundry for close to 100 years. In 2017, photo-journalist Toby Smith and geographer Dr Eszter Kovacs travelled to Mussoorie and five other towns in India and Nepal to explore the dwindling water supplies of the Himalayas and the struggles of local people who depend on them. Drawing on collaborative research at these sites led by Professor Bhaskar Vira, they created a narrative of words and pictures, Pani, Pahar (Hindi for waters of the mountains), to tell the story. “The interdependence of people and ecological processes across these dynamic landscapes is complex and fascinating,” says Vira, Director of the University of Cambridge Conservation Research Institute (UCCRI) and also in the Department of Geography. “Working with researchers in Nepal and India, we are looking at the trade-offs between land-use strategies, water availability, and the lives and livelihoods of those who live there.” A key success of the project, say the team, has been the crossover between photo-narration and research. As a result, several themes for further research have become visible across the six small towns: the changes to water sources; the way in which seasonality affects social and ecological systems; the multiple physical, social and political infrastructures that ‘count’ in the Himalayas; and the rapid pace of urbanisation. “Mussoorie is a tourist boom- town,” adds Smith, who saw not only a huge influx of tourists but also poorly constructed hotels and restaurants. “In an area prone to seismic shift, extreme rainfall and landslip events, this could be a disaster in the making. With prosperity for some, comes pressure for others.”
Research supported by the NERC-ESRC- DFID Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation Programme and an Impact Acceleration Account from the Economic and Social Research Council.
www.panipahar.com Credit: Smith (www.tobysmith.com) Toby 8 Feature
pic poems telling of cultures colliding, deeply conflicted E identities and a fast-changing world were written by the Greeks under Roman rule in the first to the sixth centuries CE. Now, the first comprehensive study of these vast, complex texts is casting new light on the era that saw the dawn of Western modernity.
Maybe it was the language, architecture, codified legal system, regulated economy, military discipline – or maybe it really was public safety and aqueducts. Whatever the Romans did for us, their reputation as a civilising force who brought order to the western world has, in the public imagination, stood the test of time remarkably well. It is especially strong for an Empire that has been battered by close historical scrutiny for almost 2,000 years. The reputation, of course, has more than a grain of truth to it – but the real story is also more complex. Not only did the Empire frequently endure assorted forms of severely uncultured political disarray, but for the kaleidoscope of peoples under its dominion, Roman rule was a varied experience that often represented an unsettling rupture with the past. As Professor Mary Beard put it in her book SPQR: “there is no single story of Rome, especially when the Roman world had expanded far outside Italy.” So perhaps another way to characterise the Roman Empire is as one of cultures colliding – a swirling melting pot of ideas and beliefs from which concepts that would define western civilisation took form. This is certainly closer to the view of Tim Whitmarsh, the A. G. Leventis Professor of Greek Culture at Cambridge, who is the to the sixth principal investigator on a project that centuries CE, has examined Greek epic poetry during the Greek world this period. had been annexed “This is perhaps the most important by the Romans. period for thinking about where Western Yet the relationship civilisation comes from,” says Whitmarsh. between the two “We really are at the dawn of modernity. cultures was To tell the story of an Empire which ambiguous. remains the model for so many forms of Greek-speaking international power is to tell the story of peoples were what we became, and what we are.” subordinate His interest in the Greek experience in one sense, stems partly from the fact that few cultures but their language under Roman rule can have felt more continued to dominate the keenly the fissure it wrought between eastern Empire – increasingly so as it present and past. In political terms, became a separate entity centred on Ancient Greek history arguably climaxed Byzantium, as Christianity emerged and with the empires established in the as the Latin-speaking west declined. aftermath of the conquests of Alexander Greek remained the primary medium the Great (356–323 BCE). In the period of cultural transmission through which when this poetry was written, from the first these changes were expressed. Greek 9 Research Horizons
of the written word at all. The vitality of questioning whether anyone truly can the spoken word, in the very distinctive command the sea’s depths, a feat that hexametrical pattern of the poems, was must surely be a journey of the intellect the single way they had of indicating and imagination. Having acknowledged authoritative utterance.” the Emperor’s political power, he was, It is perhaps the most important in effect, implying that the Greeks were tool available for understanding how perhaps greater masters of knowledge. the Greeks navigated their loss of The researchers expected to autonomy under the Romans and find that this tension gave way to a during the subsequent rise of clearer, moralistic tone, with the rise Christianity. In recent years, such of Christianity. Instead, they found it questions have provoked a surge persisted. Nonnus of Panopolis, for of interest in Greek literature during example, wrote 21 books paraphrasing that time, but epic poetry itself has the Gospel of St John, but not, it would largely been overlooked, perhaps seem, from pure devotion, since he also because it involved large, complex wrote 48 freewheeling stories about texts around which it is difficult to the Greek god Dionysus. Collectively, construct a narrative. this vast assemblage evokes parallels Funded by the Arts and Humanities between the two, not least because Research Council, Whitmarsh resurrection themes emerge from both. and his collaborators set out to Nonnus also made much of the son of systematically analyse the poetry God’s knack for turning water into wine and its cultural history for the – a subject that similarly links him to Credit: Wine jar made in Athens around 535 BC. © The Trustees of the British Museum first time. “We would argue Dionysus, god of winemaking. it’s the greatest gap in ancient Beyond Greek identity itself, the cultural studies – one of the last poetry hints at shifting ideas about uncharted territories of Greek knowledge and human nature. Oppian’s literature,” he adds. poetic guide to fishing, for instance, The final outputs will include is in fact much more. “I suspect most books and an edited collection fishermen and fisherwomen know how to of the poems themselves, but catch fish without reading a Greek epic the team started simply by poem,” Whitmarsh observes. In fact, the establishing “what was out there”. poem was as much about deliberately Astonishingly, they uncovered stretching the language conventionally evidence of about a thousand texts. used to describe aquaculture, and through Some remain only as names, others it blurring the boundaries between the exist in fragments; yet more are vast human and non-human worlds. epics that survive intact. Together, they Far from just telling stories, then, show how the Greeks were rethinking these epic poems show how, in an era their identity, both in the context of the of deeply conflicted identities, Greek time, and that of their own past and its communities tried to reorganise their cultural legacy. sense of themselves and their place in A case in point is Quintus of Smyrna, the world, and give this sense a basis for author of the Posthomerica – a deceptive future generations. Thanks to Whitmarsh title since chronologically it fills the gap and his team, they can now be read, as between Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, even they were meant to be, on such terms. communities though it was written later. Quintus’ style “The poetry represents a cultural therefore was almost uber-Homeric, elaborately statement from the time, but it is also found themselves crafted to create an almost seamless trying to be timeless,” he adds. “Each linked closely to connection with the past. Yet there is poem was trying to say something about their past, while also evidence that, having done so, he also its topic for eternity. The fact that we are coming to terms with a fast- deliberately disrupted it. “His use of still reading them today, and finding new metamorphosing future. similes is quite outrageous by Homer’s things to say about them, is a token of Epic poetry, which standards, for example,” Whitmarsh says. their success.” many associate with The reason could be Quintus’ painful Homer’s tales of awareness of a tension between the Professor Tim Whitmarsh heroic adventure, Homeric past and his own present. Faculty of Classics seems an odd Conflicted identity is a theme that [email protected] choice of lens through connects many poems of the period. The which to examine the poet Oppian, for instance, who wrote Words transformation. Whitmarsh thinks an epic on fish and fishing, provides us Tom Kirk its purpose has been misunderstood. with an excellent example of how his “In the modern West, we often get generation was seeking to reconceive Image Greek epic wrong by thinking about it as Greek selfhood in the shadow of Rome. Painting on a wine jar of Achilles a repository for ripping yarns,” he says. The work ostensibly praises the killing Penthesilea, as described “Actually, it was central to their sense of Emperor as master over land and sea in the epic poem Posthomerica how the world operated. This wasn’t a – a very Roman formula. Oppian then written by Quintus of Smyrna in world of scripture; it wasn’t primarily one sabotages his own proclamation by the third century CE 10 Feature
TAKING A MOON SHOT AT CYSTIC FIBROSIS
Words Craig Brierley
lmost 30 years on from the scribblings, on the opposite wall books infections that plague people living with discovery of the genetic defect and files line shelves, and on his desk the condition. A that causes cystic fibrosis, are photos of his family. CF occurs when an individual inherits treatment options are still limited His desk is somewhat different: it two copies of a single genetic variant, and growing antibiotic resistance can rise or fall, depending on whether he one from each parent. The disease causes presents a grave threat. Now, a team wants to work standing or sitting – and a build-up of thick, sticky mucus in the of researchers from across Cambridge underneath is a treadmill for walking lungs, intestines and organs, and those hopes to turn fortunes around, thanks and working at the same time. “There affected by the condition are particularly to a major new centre supported have been times when I’ve been deep in susceptible to lung infections leading to by the Cystic Fibrosis Trust. thought and almost fallen off it,” he jokes. progressive inflammatory lung damage. Winn has cystic fibrosis (CF) and Although life expectancy for people with CF John Winn’s office at Microsoft Research keeping fit is an important part of has almost doubled in recent decades, looks like that of any typical academic: managing his condition: the stronger his it is still significantly below average. on one wall is a whiteboard graffitied with lung function, the better equipped he is Winn is a machine learning specialist impenetrable equations and mathematical to fight the potentially life-threatening and is using his expertise to fight the 11 Research Horizons
condition that affects his everyday resistant and spreading globally. This life. Together with Professor Andres is one reason why people with CF are A ‘no-strings-attached’ relationship Floto from Cambridge’s Department of advised not to meet each other. Medicine, he is turning data from the daily “Clearly the techniques that we lives of people with CF into potentially develop – and the drug-like molecules Professor Clare Bryant, like Floto, works life-saving information. that come out of it – will have more on an inflammatory lung disease as As part of this study, funded by the general applicability to patients with part of the GSK/Cambridge Strategic Cystic Fibrosis Trust and Papworth other multi-drug resistant infections,” Partnership: in her case, chronic Hospital, participants have been Floto says. This will be welcome news obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD). submitting data – everything from heart to England’s Chief Medical Officer, rate and lung function through to self- Professor Dame Sally Davies, who has COPD is a condition caused by smoking, reported wellbeing – via an app that also warned of a future where “any one of pollution and severe asthma. Bryant is monitors their activity levels. Machine us could go into hospital in 20 years for looking in particular at how COPD makes learning then sifts through the data, minor surgery and die because of an the lungs ‘stickier’ to bacteria, increasing looking for patterns and – it’s hoped – ordinary infection that can’t be treated the risk of infections. builds a model that can predict when a by antibiotics.” She holds two grants under the patient’s health is about to deteriorate The timing of all this is particularly GSK/Cambridge Strategic Partnership, and advise them to seek medical help. good: Papworth Hospital, whose Adult which aims to develop the next wave of “The overarching principle is about Cystic Fibrosis Centre has gained a ‘game-changing’ medicines by bringing giving people control over their own national and international reputation academic and industrial expertise health data and making it work for them,” for its treatment of patients and its together to tackle often intractable says Winn. “There’s some informal contribution to research, is due to move disease. Based at Cambridge’s feedback that just participating in the to the Biomedical Campus later in 2018. Department of Veterinary Medicine, study and taking these readings has Bryant currently has a three-day-a-week already improved health outcomes sabbatical at GSK’s headquarters in for some individuals: for example, Stevenage. it’s helped with adherence with taking It’s almost 30 years The three-year sabbatical provides their medications as they noticed that Bryant with three postdocs, one PhD if they missed taking certain medicines, since the gene that student and a budget, with access to their readings got worse.” GSK resources, but with “no strings The project is one strand of causes CF was attached”. The only proviso is that if research at a major new Cystic Fibrosis she works with a GSK reagent, they Innovation Hub based on the Cambridge discovered… it’s have first rights on what she does with Biomedical Campus and run by Floto. it. Crucially, she says, it gives her The Hub is supported through a £5 time to take this shot “the space to think”. million commitment from the Cystic Bryant is embedded in GSK’s Fibrosis Trust and matching funds from at the moon Respiratory Drug Discovery Unit and the University of Cambridge. It will attends its lab meeting every week. strengthen existing collaborations across “I’ve met really smart, clever scientists the University and with the Wellcome The CF wards will feature state-of-the-art at GSK, with different skills to those Sanger Institute, as well as build new air flow systems, designed with Floto’s of us in academia,” she says. “I get collaborative research networks with CF work on the spread of multi-drug resistant to see all aspects of what happens at centres around the UK. The Trust’s Chief CF pathogens in mind. GSK, everything from how a target is Executive, David Ramsden, said it will This close proximity between the identified, to how drugs are developed “provide a step change in CF research patients and the researchers will help Floto to target it, through to taking these across the country”. test the new treatments he is pioneering. He drugs to clinical trials. I see the Floto agrees with this sentiment: is particularly excited about the potential for whole spectrum.” “We have an opportunity to uplift UK new cellular therapies he’s developing with It is, though, a mutually beneficial CF research in general by providing Professor Ludovic Vallier at the Wellcome- programme, she stresses. Bryant brings knowhow, training and reagents in a MRC Cambridge Stem Cell Institute. Floto her knowledge of innate immunity and number of areas including genomics, describes these as their “moon shot”. her experience of multi-disciplinary bioinformatics, stem cells and clinical These would involve taking cells from a CF collaborations, particularly in imaging. trials technology.” patient, re-programming them – correcting “It’s effectively like being a consultant,” A major part of the Hub’s activities the genetic defect along the way – and then she says. “I want them to get as much will be the development of new drugs re-injecting them into patients. “This could out of me as I do out of them.” that target chronic inflammation in CF, provide a way to regenerate damaged in collaboration with the pharmaceutical lungs,” he says. company GSK as part of the GSK/ Floto knows his plans for the Hub are Professor Clare Bryant Cambridge Strategic Partnership, as well ambitious, but given that it’s almost 30 Department of Veterinary Medicine as new antibiotic therapy for the main years since the gene that causes CF was [email protected] causes of lung infection in the condition. discovered and there is still no cure for Finding new drugs against these the disease, he believes it’s time to take Professor Andres Floto bacteria is becoming increasingly urgent this shot at the moon. Department of Medicine – Floto and Professor Julian Parkhill [email protected] at the Sanger recently showed that Floto’s collaborators in the CF Innovation Mycobacterium abscessus, the pathogen Hub include Chris Abell (Chemistry), Dr John Winn behind one of the most serious infections, Sir Tom Blundell (Biochemistry), Julian Microsoft Research is becoming increasingly multi-drug Parkhill and Ludovic Vallier. [email protected] 12 Feature
hat links a series of volcanic lasted until around AD 660, making this from witnesses who were alive at the eruptions and severe summer period the coldest experienced during at time – trees. The insight is based on the W cooling with a century of least the last two millennia. It is now known synchronised pattern of ring widths found pandemics, human migrations, as the Late Antique Little Ice Age, or LALIA. within different tree species at various political turmoil and the rise and fall Professor Ulf Büntgen, then at the sites across the northern hemisphere. of civilisations? Tree rings, says Ulf Swiss Federal Research Institute WSL “We believe this exceptionally cold Büntgen, who leads Cambridge’s and now in Cambridge’s Department of phase from AD 536 to around AD 660 – as first dedicated tree-ring laboratory Geography, was lead author of the study recorded by very narrow tree rings – should at the Department of Geography. published in Nature Geoscience in 2016 be considered as a direct or indirect factor that introduced and described the concept in explaining some of the historical events AD 536: it’s been called the year that of the LALIA. The team of archaeologists, that occurred both in Europe and Asia winter never ended. climatologists, geographers and historians during that time,” says Büntgen. “There was a sign in the sun the like of was the first to provide independent lines As distinctive as a fingerprint, the rings which had never been seen and reported of absolutely dated and annually resolved formed in trees outside the tropics are before... The sun became dark and its paleoclimatic evidence for a period of annually precise growth layers. Büntgen darkness lasted for eighteen months. Each great change that had long perplexed is an expert at assembling, reading and day it shone for about four hours, and still scientists and historians alike. interpreting these ‘slices of time’ and, since this light was only a feeble shadow,” wrote “The LALIA coincided with a number his arrival in Cambridge in January 2017, medieval chronicler Michael the Syrian. of extremely important transformation has set up the University’s first dedicated A volcanic eruption had thrown a vast processes in human history,” he explains. tree-ring laboratory. ash cloud into the stratosphere and a “We have the outbreak of the Justinian “You ideally start with a living tree,” dense fog settled over Europe, the Middle plague across much of the eastern Roman he explains. “This is your anchor point East and China. It was a year of failed Empire, large-scale migration from inner – you know that the outer layer is this crops and of famine. Eurasia towards Europe and China, turmoil year’s growth ring, and that the innermost But worse was to follow. A further two in many parts of central and east Asia, and rings take you back to the tree’s juvenile volcanic eruptions in 540 and 547 began an the collapse of the eastern Türk Empire.” growth, with the pith ideally referring to unprecedented cooling across much of the What’s remarkable is that much its birth year. You repeat for many trees, northern hemisphere. The thermal shock of the evidence for the LALIA comes using statistical analyses to compare Credit: Hrafn Óskarsson Hrafn Credit: 13 Research Horizons
and match the pattern with other trees “The subfossil wood smells like a fresh precise idea of climatic and environmental growing at the same time under the same tree, yet this material can be thousands conditions at key periods in history. environmental conditions, including of years old,” he says. “It’s all about “When you look for links between climate. Once you’ve gone back as far preservation. If you take wood from a living climate variability and human history as you can with the oldest living tree you tree and put it in anaerobic conditions you start to build up a multi-dimensional look for their dead ancestors.” like a lake or in dense clay everything is picture of the past,” he explains. “But the His team counts rings in the timbers preserved. That’s why we can ultimately subject is overwhelmingly approached of historical buildings, in subfossil trees compile multi-millennial-long chronologies from within disciplinary silos.” preserved in bogs and sediments, and in for reconstructing past climate variability.” This is why, since his move to ‘ice-rafted’ driftwood washed up on Arctic Cambridge, Büntgen and colleagues shores. Back and back they go, comparing from the Department of Geography and cross-dating, looking for overlaps that “Once you’ve gone have been forging links with historians, provide new anchor points in the ‘floating archaeologists, earth scientists and chronology’ of patterns. You can see why back as far as you plant scientists, to make the most of Büntgen describes dendrochronology as this remarkable archive. a big data game. can with the oldest “Once you embark on these He is currently involved in a integrative approaches you can ask collaborative effort by scientists from living tree you questions like we did for the LALIA – different disciplines and countries to build what was the role of environmental the world’s longest absolutely dated and look for their dead factors in large-scale human migrations continuous tree-ring chronology. The team and the rise and fall of ancient will hopefully soon be able to add another ancestors” civilisations? How did complex societies 2,000 years, taking the record well into the cope with climate change? That’s when Late Glacial period near the end of the last it starts to get really exciting.” major Ice Age around 14,000 years ago. As an environmental scientist, his This is a huge accomplishment when you main interest is in using continuous tree- Professor Ulf Büntgen consider that a very cold year might result ring chronologies to reconstruct how the Department of Geography in a ring that’s only a single cell wide. Earth’s climate system behaved in the [email protected] His laboratory is full of further past and to understand how ecosystems collections of wood ready to be analysed, were, and are, responding to temperature Words including numerous disc samples from and hydroclimatic variation. Louise Walsh relict larch trees that were discovered in But a timeline as accurate as this north-eastern Siberia, where hunters look has many other uses, principally in being Image for mammoth teeth. able to provide a spatially and temporally Drumbabót forest in Iceland 14 Feature
ew research lifts the lid on an Prime Minister David Cameron described influential academy school and academies as “working miracles”. She found a N finds an authoritarian system that Primarily state funded but run as not-for- reproduces race and class inequalities. profit businesses, sometimes with support stress-ridden from individual philanthropists, academies ‘Structure liberates’: the ethos behind one such as Dreamfields are independent of hierarchical of England’s flagship academy schools. local authority control and sit outside the Designed as an engine of social mobility, democratic process of local government. culture focused this school drills ‘urban children’ for The gospel according to Dreamfields’ the grades and behaviour considered a celebrated head is described as a on a conveyer passport to the world of middle-class “traditional approach”. Kulz says she found salaries and sensibilities. a stress-ridden hierarchical culture focused belt of testing The headline-grabbing exam results on a conveyer belt of testing under strict – of this school have led politicians to almost military – conditions, and suffused champion its approach as a silver bullet with police-style language of ‘investigations’ for entrenched poverty, and ‘structure and ‘repeat offenders’. liberates’ has become the blueprint for Enforcement comes through what Kulz recent urban education reform. calls the “verbal cane”. Tongue-lashings The school’s recipe has now been administered by teachers regularly echoed replicated many times through academy around the corridors, and were encouraged trusts that have spread like “modern-day by senior staff. One teacher told Kulz that missionaries” across the nation, says Dr seeing tall male members of staff screaming Christy Kulz, a Leverhulme Research Fellow in the faces of 11-year-olds was “very hard at Cambridge’s Faculty of Education. to digest”. Shortly after it opened, Kulz was This verbal aggression is heightened granted permission to conduct fieldwork by the panoptic surveillance built into in the school, where she had once worked the very architecture of the school. All as a teaching assistant. Choosing to activity is conducted within the bounds anonymise her research, she calls the of a U-shaped building with a complete school Dreamfields. glass frontage. Everyone is on show Her new book goes behind the scenes at all times, including staff, who felt of life at Dreamfields, and is the only detailed ethnographic account of the everyday practices within this new breed of academy school. “Education has long been promoted as a salve that cures urban deprivation and balances capitalism’s inequalities,” says Kulz, who spent 18 months of observation in Dreamfields, interviewing parents, teachers and students “The academy programme taps into ‘mythical qualities’ of social mobility: some kind of magic formula that provides equal opportunities for every individual once they are within the school, regardless of race, class or social context.” In 2012, then
“Little robots”: behind the scenes at an academy school 15 Research Horizons
constantly monitored and pressured into product quickly and accurately. One student visibly exerting the discipline favoured by described himself to Kulz as a “little robot”. management. Most teachers exceeded a 48-hour Policing was not confined to within the week. The majority of staff were young – school gates. Kulz goes on a ride-along an average age of 33 – with fewer outside with what’s known as “chicken-shop commitments, yet many expressed a sense patrol”. Driving around the streets after of exhaustion. “If you’re not in a lesson we school, staff members jump out of the car are expected to patrol,” one teacher told to intervene when children are deemed to Kulz. “Every moment of every day is taken be congregating or in scruffy uniforms. up with some sort of duty.” Unlike most Stopping off at one of the local takeaways schools, Dreamfields has no staff room. is considered a major offence. “Fried chicken Some staff discussed former represents a ‘poor choice’ that Dreamfields colleagues who had suffered burnout or must prohibit in order to change urban were asked to resign. During interviews, culture,” says Kulz. “Simply being caught in Kulz found conspiracy theories were rife a takeaway after school is punished with a among students because of the number of two-hour detention the following day.” teachers that “just disappeared”. Students are also policed through Yet Dreamfields was – and still is – exacting uniform adherence, with a fêted by politicians and the media for its ‘broken-window theory’ approach that sees undeniably extraordinary exam results: over deviation as opening the door to chaos. 80% pass rate at GCSE in an area where this was previously unthinkable. At the time, the school was vastly oversubscribed, with over 1,500 applications for just 200 places. “Most of the students, parents and teachers were keen to comply to Dreamfields’ regime, despite its injustices. The school’s approach was seen as the best shot at securing grades and succeeding in an increasingly precarious economy. “Students, like staff, are trained to be expendable while the ideals of democracy and critical thinking we are allegedly meant to cherish are quashed in the process.” White middle-class children with long This model of a disciplinarian school floppy hair, or gathering en masse by built for surveillance and which teaches Tesco, were ignored. Teachers troubled market-force obedience has marched ever by this would hint at it in hushed tones. onward since her time in Dreamfields, says “The approach of many academy Kulz – arriving at new poverty front-lines schools is one of cultural cloning,” such as rundown seaside towns. says Kulz. “The Dreamfields creed is Yet, grassroots resistance to this style that ‘urban children’, a phrase used by of education is increasing. Last year, a staff to mean working-class and ethnic recently established academy in Great minority kids assumed to have unhappy Yarmouth that forbade “slouching and backgrounds, need salvaging – with talking in corridors” had pupils pulled out middle-class students positioned as the by parents objecting to the “draconian” unnamed, normative and universal ideal.” rules that were central to the much-imitated “Black students were consistently Dreamfields playbook. more heavily policed in the playground, Kulz believes the grades achieved by resulting in many consciously adopting these schools – far from universally high The smallest rule infraction can be met ‘whiter’ styles and behaviours – a tactic – come at a price. “We cannot continue with a spell in isolated detention. that reduced their surveillance.” to ignore the links between the testing Staff would sometimes go to strange It is not just children who are driven regimes we put pupils through, the harsh lengths to maintain conformity, she says. hard through incessant monitoring. Staff school cultures they create, and the Suede shoes were subject to clampdown. at Dreamfields are subject to ‘teacher deteriorating physical and mental health Parental suggestions of a karaoke stall at tracking’, a rolling system in which student of children and young people in the UK.” a winter fair were considered far too risky. grades are converted into scores, allowing “There is no room for unpredictability at management to rank the teachers – an ‘Factories for Learning: Making Race, Dreamfields,” says Kulz. One student who approach staff compared with salesmen Class and Inequality in the Neoliberal shaved lines into his eyebrows had to being judged on their weekly turnover. Academy’ (2017) is published by have them coloured in by a teacher every This pressurised auditing resulted Manchester University Press. morning. in rote learning to avoid a red flag in the As fieldwork progressed, however, system. “You put a grade in that satisfies Dr Christy Kulz Kulz began to notice discrepancies that the system instead of it satisfying the Faculty of Education tallied uncomfortably with race and social student’s knowledge and needs,” one [email protected] background. Black children with fringes, teacher lamented to Kulz, explaining his ‘real or children who congregated outside job’ was not to teach understanding of his Words takeaways, were reprimanded immediately. subject, but to get students to produce a set Fred Lewsey 16 Feature THE BODY IN he past few years have seen of a growing body of work – no pun an explosion in the number of intended – that uses miniature organ-like T studies using organoids – so- tissues to understand human biology and called mini-organs – as ways of testing in particular why it goes wrong in cancer drugs. As the field matures, will we also and dementia. Other research groups see them being used in personalised in Cambridge are growing mini-brains, medicine and even in transplants? mini-oesophaguses, mini-bile ducts, mini-lungs, mini-intestines, mini-wombs, Dr Laura Broutier reaches into the mini-pancreases… Almost the whole body incubator and takes out a culture plate in miniature, it seems. with 24 separate wells, each containing It’s perhaps a misnomer to call a pale pink liquid. “If you look closely, them mini-organs. They look nothing you can see the dots there,” she says, like a miniature organ. Rather, they are manipulating the plates until specks the ‘organoids’, clusters of cells that can size of a full stop catch the light. grow and proliferate in culture, taking Broutier is a postdoc in Dr Meritxell on a 3D structure that has the same Huch’s lab at the Wellcome Trust/Cancer tissue architecture, gene expression Research UK Gurdon Institute, and these and genetic functions as the part of the “dots” are miniature liver tumours that have organ being studied. been regrown from cancer cells taken The technique that Huch uses involves from patients at nearby Addenbrooke’s taking cells from the liver or, in the case Hospital. They could make it possible to of her latest work, liver tumours, and identify cancer drugs personalised for growing these in culture. Her early work each individual patient. involved growing mini-livers from mouse Huch’s latest work builds on her stem cells, but she is now working with previous research on ‘mini-livers’, part human tissue.
MINIATURE 17 Research Horizons
“Organoids have opened up a lot of In the same edition of Development, Cambridge Stem Cell Institute (also a possibilities for us,” she says. “They’re Huch co-wrote a counterpoint to Martinez- winner of a 3Rs prize in 2011). not 100% identical to the tissue, but Arias’s article, about the hope surrounding Earlier this year, Vallier succeeded in they recapitulate many more functions of organoids, but she agrees with Martinez- using biliary organoids to reconstruct the the tissue of origin, so we can use them Arias that much of the research to date common bile duct, a pipe linking the liver to study adult tissue in way that wasn’t has been merely descriptive. “It has been to the gut. It carries bile, which contains previously possible.” ‘Oh, we can do this and we can grow this’, all the toxins produced by the liver and This ability to use organoids in place but little has been shown about what we is also essential for helping us digest of animal models has attracted the can learn.” food. If it’s damaged, for example in the interest of the National Centre for the This, she says, is how her recent study childhood disease biliary atresia, this can Replacement, Refinement and Reduction on liver tumours – “tumouroids” as she lead to accumulation of toxic bile of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), who calls them – differs. “We’ve shown not in the liver and ultimately liver failure. currently supports Huch’s work and only that we can grow them, but what we Vallier and colleagues extracted Credit: left, Ludovic Vallier; right, Meritxell Huch awarded her a 3Rs prize in 2014. can do with them.” healthy cells from mouse bile ducts and Organoid research has exploded Huch recently published a proof-of- grew these into functioning 3D duct in recent years. Applications include principle that it’s possible to derive mini- structures known as biliary organoids. modelling tissue, early development, tumours in culture from a patient’s own But it was the next step that makes this disease, drug discovery, and now cells against which drugs can be tested to so significant: they then rebuilt a common regenerative medicine. Little wonder, then, find the most effective treatment for that bile duct with the help of bioengineers that The Scientist magazine named the patient – so-called personalised medicine. Dr Athina Markaki and Alex Justin. technique one of the biggest scientific When transplanted into mice, the biliary advancements of 2013; since then, the organoids assembled into intricate number of organoid-related scientific papers structures resembling bile ducts and in the PubMed Central repository has mini-brains, helped the mice to survive without more than doubled to over 1,000 per year. further complications. But, as with any promising new mini-oesophaguses, The next step, he says, is to try this development in research, we must be in large animals such as pigs, which careful not to oversell it, says Professor mini-bile ducts, are closer in size and physiology to Alfonso Martinez-Arias from the mini-lungs, humans than are mice. “In two or three Department of Genetics. In some cases, years’ time, we should have the right he argues, the research is little more than mini-intestines, biomaterials at the right size to use in doing “safaris on culture plates”. clinical trials in humans,” he says. Last year, he co-wrote an article in mini-wombs, Back at the Gurdon Institute, when the journal Development about the hype Broutier slides her culture plate under surrounding organoids. Despite taking mini-pancreases… the microscope, the organoids are still particular exception in the article to unremarkable to the eye. Looks can clearly claims that scientists in the USA had almost the whole be deceptive: these tiny clusters of cells made the “most complete human brain are most definitely not unremarkable. model to date”, he is not as dismissive body in miniature, of the field as one might imagine. The problem, he says, is one of it seems reproducibility – the same experimental conditions should yield samples that are almost identical in terms of size, shape and Such work can currently only be done composition. This is currently not the case, by transplanting tumour tissue into mice, he says – organoids can often not be grown growing it over several months and testing reliably, forcing researchers to ‘cherry pick’ the drugs on the mouse – time-consuming the best, and even then (and in contrast and technically limiting. Imagine, she with the organism) each one is different. says, being able to screen hundreds – “Cells in a Petri dish, like children in even thousands – of drugs at a time on a playground, will arrange themselves the mini-liver tumours. Clearly this would be into patterns and some of these will neither practical nor ethical in animals. Dr Laura Broutier make sense to you. But if we want the “Whether it can be done economically Dr Meritxell Huch system to be reproducible and useful and practically on an individual patient Wellcome Trust/Cancer for disease modelling, drug screening basis, time will tell,” she says. “I think, as Research UK Gurdon Institute or understanding basic mechanisms, with everything, once the technology has [email protected] we need to steer them and ensure that if become cheaper, it will be feasible.” an experiment starts with one hundred It is tempting to speculate that if Professor Alfonso Martinez-Arias groups of cells, we end up with one scientists can grow organoids in the Department of Genetics hundred almost identical organoids.” lab, they will soon be able to grow fully [email protected] Martinez-Arias’s own work is on functioning organs. But Huch believes gastruloids – the same concept as we are nowhere near this stage. More Professor Ludovic Vallier organoids, but used to model very feasible is the idea of using organoids Wellcome-MRC Cambridge Stem early stages of embryonic development. to replace damaged or diseased tissue Cell Institute Working closely with physicists and – or more accurately, to help such [email protected] engineers, his team has managed to tissue ‘regenerate’. This is one area of generate gastruloids using mouse research being pursued by Professor Words cells that are highly reproducible. Ludovic Vallier from the Wellcome-MRC Craig Brierley 18 Things
Things “The role of art is to give food for thought…” Jim Ede ettle’s Yard – Cambridge University’s unique modern K art gallery – has re-opened after an ambitious refurbishment. Its new research facilities will help scholars discover why its founder, Jim Ede, believed “there should be a Kettle’s Yard in every university.”
Until 1973, Kettle’s Yard was the home of Jim Ede, a former curator of London’s Tate Gallery, and his wife Helen. Today it comprises a house containing his remarkable art collection and a modern art gallery that has now been enlarged, providing extra exhibition space to host major international artists and also education rooms. A brand new research space and archive will enable scholars to study Ede’s personal correspondence – amounting to thousands of letters with prominent artists such as Alfred Wallis, Ben and Winifred Nicholson, Joan Miró, Henri Gaudier- Brzeska, Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Constantin Brancusi. “The archive is forever delivering little surprises,” says archivist Frieda Midgley. “Not many people know, for example, that Jim Ede struck up a long-running correspondence with T. E. Lawrence (‘Lawrence of Arabia’), or that the collection includes a monogrammed section of one of the artist Christopher Wood’s shirts.” Also within the archive are 40 years of correspondence between Ede and American artist Richard Pousette-Dart – a contemporary of Jackson Pollock and Mark Rothko. The letters are being studied by Dr Jennifer Powell – Head of Collections and Programme at Kettle’s Yard and lecturer in the Department of History of Art – to provide new insight for a forthcoming exhibition. Adds Midgley: “If Kettle’s Yard is the ultimate expression of a way of life developed over 50 years and more, the archive adds an extra dimension by documenting the rich story of how that philosophy evolved.”
The refurbishment was principally funded by the Arts Council England and the Heritage Lottery Fund.
www.kettlesyard.co.uk 19 Research Horizons
Credit: Clockwise from top left, Five ships – Mount’s Bay, 1928 (circa) by Alfred Wallis; Jim Ede; the new Kettle’s Yard; letters among Ede’s archive. All images, Kettle’s Yard. 20 Spotlight
LIVING WITH AI Powerful AI needs to be reliably aligned with human values. Does this mean that AI will eventually have to police those values? Philosophers Huw Price and Karina Vold consider the trade-off between safety and autonomy in the era of superintelligence. 21 Research Horizons
his has been the decade of AI, the smarts for the job. If there are routes this the future we want, a life in a well- with one astonishing feat after to the uplands, they’ll be better than us at curated moral zoo? T another. A chess-playing AI that finding them, and steering us in the right These issues might seem far-fetched, can defeat not only all human chess direction. They might be our guides to a but they are already on our doorsteps. players, but also all previous human- much better world. Imagine we want an AI to handle resource programmed chess machines, after However, there are two big problems allocation decisions in our health system, learning the game in just four hours? with this utopian vision. One is how we for example. It might do so much more That’s yesterday’s news, what’s next? get the machines started on the journey, fairly and efficiently than humans can
the other is what it would mean to reach manage, with benefits for patients and Credit: Sculpture by Rona Pondick True, these prodigious accomplishments this destination. taxpayers. But we’d need to specify its are all in so-called narrow AI, where The ‘getting started’ problem is that goals correctly (e.g. to avoid discriminatory machines perform highly specialised tasks. we need to tell the machines what they’re practices), and we’d be depriving some But many experts believe this restriction is looking for with sufficient clarity and humans (e.g. senior doctors) of some of very temporary. By mid-century, we may precision that we can be confident that the discretion they presently enjoy. So have artificial general intelligence (AGI) – they will find it – whatever ‘it’ actually turns we already face the getting started and machines that are capable of human-level out to be. This is a daunting challenge, destination problems. And they are only performance on the full range of tasks given that we are confused and conflicted going to get harder. that we ourselves can tackle. about the ideals ourselves, and different This isn’t the first time that a If so, then there’s little reason to think communities might have different views. powerful new technology has had moral that it will stop there. Machines will be The ‘destination’ problem is that, in implications. Speaking about the dangers free of many of the physical constraints putting ourselves in the hands of these of thermonuclear weapons in 1954, on human intelligence. Our brains run moral guides and gatekeepers, we might Bertrand Russell argued that to avoid at slow biochemical processing speeds be sacrificing our own autonomy – an wiping ourselves out “we have to learn to on the power of a light bulb, and need important part of what makes us human. think in a new way”. He urged his listener to to fit through a human birth canal. It is Just to focus on one aspect of these set aside tribal allegiances and “consider remarkable what they accomplish, given difficulties, we are deeply tribal creatures. yourself only as a member of a biological these handicaps. But they may be as far We find it very easy to ignore the suffering species... whose disappearance none of us from the physical limits of thought as our can desire.” eyes are from the Webb Space Telescope. We have survived the nuclear risk Once machines are better than us at so far, but now we have a new powerful designing even smarter machines, progress “we want the technology to deal with – itself, literally, a towards these limits could accelerate. What new way of thinking. For our own safety, we would this mean for us? Could we ensure a machines to be need to point these new thinkers in the right safe and worthwhile coexistence with such direction, and get them to act well for us. machines? ethically as well It is not yet clear whether this is possible, On the plus side, AI is already useful but if so it will require the same cooperative and profitable for many things, and super as cognitively spirit, the same willingness to set aside AI might be expected to be super useful, superhuman” tribalism, that Russell had in mind. and super profitable. But the more powerful But that’s where the parallel stops. AI becomes, the more we ask it to do for Avoiding nuclear war means business us, the more important it will be to specify as usual. Getting the long-term future of its goals with great care. Folklore is full of strangers, and even to contribute to it, life with AI right means a very different of tales of people who ask for the wrong at least indirectly. For our own sakes, we world. Both general intelligence and moral thing, with disastrous consequences – King should hope that AI will do better. It is not reasoning are often thought to be uniquely Midas, for example, who didn’t really want just that we might find ourselves at the human capacities. But safety seems to his breakfast to turn to gold as he put it mercy of some other tribe’s AI, but that we require that we think of them as a package: to his lips. could not trust our own, if we had taught it if we are to give general intelligence to So we need to make sure that powerful that not all suffering matters. This means machines, we’ll need to give them moral AI machines are ‘human-friendly’ – that that as tribal and morally fallible creatures, authority, too. That means a radical end they have goals reliably aligned with our we need to point the machines in the to human exceptionalism. own values. One thing that makes this task direction of something better. How do we All the more reason to think about the difficult is that by the standards we want do that? That’s the getting started problem. destination now, and to be careful about the machines to aim for, we ourselves do As for the destination problem, suppose what we wish for. rather poorly. Humans are far from reliably that we succeed. Machines who are better human-friendly. We do many terrible things than us at sticking to the moral high ground to each other and to many other sentient may be expected to discourage some of creatures with whom we share the planet. the lapses we presently take for granted. Professor Huw Price If superintelligent machines don’t do a lot We might lose our freedom to discriminate Faculty of Philosophy and better than us, we’ll be in deep trouble. in favour of our own tribes, for example. the Leverhulme Centre for We’ll have powerful new intelligence Loss of freedom to behave badly isn’t the Future of Intelligence (CFI) amplifying the dark sides of our own always a bad thing, of course: denying [email protected] fallible natures. ourselves the freedom to keep slaves, or For safety’s sake, then, we want to put children to work in factories, or to Dr Karina Vold the machines to be ethically as well as smoke in restaurants are signs of progress. Faculty of Philosophy and CFI cognitively superhuman. We want them But are we ready for ethical overlords [email protected] to aim for the moral high ground, not for – sanctimonious silicon curtailing our the troughs in which many of us spend options? They might be so good at doing Words some of our time. Luckily they’ll have it that we don’t notice the fences; but is Huw Price and Karina Vold
22 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence The uncertain unicycle that taught itself and how it’s helping AI make
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23 Research Horizons
ambridge researchers are Driverless cars, for instance, may be One of the really exciting frontiers is pioneering a form of machine trained on a huge dataset of images but being able to model probable outcomes in C learning that starts with only a they might not be able to generalise to the future, as Turner describes. “The role little prior knowledge and continually foggy conditions. of uncertainty becomes very clear when learns from the world around it. “Worse than that, the current deep we start to talk about forecasting future learning systems can sometimes give us problems such as climate change.” In the centre of the screen is a tiny unicycle. confidently wrong answers, and provide Turner is working with climate The animation starts, the unicycle lurches limited insight into why they have come to scientists Dr Emily Shuckburgh and Dr forward and falls. This is trial #1. particular decisions. This is what bothers Scott Hosking at the British Antarctic It’s now trial #11 and there’s a change me. It’s okay to be wrong but it’s not okay Survey to ask whether machine learning – an almost imperceptible delay in the fall, to be confidently wrong.” techniques can improve understanding of perhaps an attempt to right itself before The key is how you deal with climate change risks in the future. the inevitable crash. “It’s learning from uncertainty – the uncertainty of messy “We need to quantify the future risk experience,” nods Professor Carl Edward and missing data, and the uncertainty and impacts of extreme weather at a Rasmussen. of predicting what might happen next. local scale to inform policy responses to After a minute, the unicycle is gently “Uncertainty is not a good thing – it’s climate change,” explains Shuckburgh. rocking back and forth as it circles on the something you fight, but you can’t fight it “The traditional computer simulations of spot. It’s figured out how this extremely by ignoring it,” says Rasmussen. “We are the climate give us a good understanding unstable system works and has mastered interested in representing the uncertainty.” of the average climate conditions. What its goal. “The unicycle starts with knowing It turns out that there’s a mathematical we are aiming to do with this work nothing about what’s going on – it’s only theory that tells you what to do. It was is to combine that knowledge with been told that its goal is to stay in the first described by 18th-century English observational data from satellites and centre in an upright fashion. As it starts statistician Thomas Bayes. Ghahramani’s other sources to get a better handle on, falling forwards and backwards, it starts group was one of the earliest adopters in for example, the risk of low-probability but to learn,” explains Rasmussen, who AI of Bayesian probability theory, which high-impact weather events.” leads the Computational and Biological describes how the probability of an event “It’s actually a fascinating machine Learning Lab in the Department of occurring (such as staying upright in the learning challenge,” says Turner, who is Engineering. “We had a real unicycle centre) is updated as more evidence (such helping to identify which area of climate robot but it was actually quite dangerous as the decision the unicycle last took modelling is most amenable to using – it was strong – and so now we use data before falling over) becomes available. Bayesian probability. “The data are from the real one to run simulations, and Dr Richard Turner explains how Bayes’ extremely complex, and sometimes missing we have a mini version.” rule handles continual learning: “the and unlabelled. The uncertainties are rife.” Rasmussen uses the self-taught system takes its prior knowledge, weights One significant element of uncertainty unicycle to demonstrate how a machine it by how accurate it thinks that knowledge is the fact that the predictions are based can start with very little data and learn is, then combines it with new evidence that on our future reduction of emissions, the dynamically, improving its knowledge is also weighted by its accuracy. extent of which is as yet unknown. every time it receives new information “This is much more data-efficient than “An interesting part of this for policy from its environment. The consequences the way a standard neural network works,” makers, aside from the forecasting of adjusting its motorised momentum and he adds. “New information can cause value, is that you can imagine having a balance help the unicycle to learn which a neural network to forget everything it machine that continually learns from the moves were important in helping it to stay learned previously – called catastrophic consequences of mitigation strategies upright in the centre. forgetting – meaning it needs to look at such as reducing emissions – or the lack “This is just like a human would learn,” all of its labelled examples all over again, of them – and adjusts its predictions explains Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, like relearning the rules and glossary of a accordingly,” adds Turner. who leads the Machine Learning Group language every time you learn a new word. What he is describing is a machine that in the Department of Engineering. “We “Our system doesn’t need to revisit all – like the unicycle – feeds on uncertainty, don’t start knowing everything. We learn the data it’s seen before – just like humans learns continuously from the real world, things incrementally, from only a few don’t remember all past experiences; and assesses and then reassesses all examples, and we know when we are not instead we learn a summary and we possible outcomes. When it comes to yet confident in our understanding.” update it as things go on.” climate, however, it’s also a machine of Ghahramani’s team is pioneering a Ghahramani adds: “The great thing all possible futures. branch of AI called continual machine about Bayesian machine learning is learning. He explains that many of the the system makes decisions based on current forms of machine learning are evidence – it’s sometimes thought of as Professor Zoubin Ghahramani based on neural networks and deep ‘automating the scientific method’ – and Department of Engineering learning models that use complex because it’s based on probability, it can [email protected] algorithms to find patterns in vast tell us when it’s outside its comfort zone.” datasets. Common applications include Ghahramani is also Chief Scientist at Professor Carl Edward Rasmussen translating phrases into different Uber. He sees a future where machines Department of Engineering languages, recognising people and are continually learning not just individually [email protected] objects in images, and detecting unusual but as part of a group. “Whether it’s spending on credit cards. companies like Uber optimising supply Dr Emily Shuckburgh “These systems need to be trained on and demand, or autonomous vehicles British Antarctic Survey millions of labelled examples, which takes alerting each other to what’s ahead on the [email protected] time and a lot of computer memory,” he road, or robots working together to lift a explains. “And they have flaws. When you heavy load – cooperation, and sometimes Dr Richard Turner test them outside of the data they were competition, in AI will help solve problems Department of Engineering trained on they tend to perform poorly. across a huge range of industries.” [email protected] 24 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence “ROBOTS CAN GO ALL THE WAY TO MARS... Credit: Sam Armstrong
Image n the popular imagination, robots Puppy, a running robot have been portrayed alternatively as developed by Fumiya I friendly companions or existential Iida’s team threat. But while robots are becoming commonplace in many industries, they are neither C-3PO nor the Terminator. Cambridge researchers are studying the interaction between robots and humans – and teaching them how to do the very difficult things that we find easy.
Stacks of vertical shelves weave around each other in what looks like an intricately choreographed – if admittedly inelegant – ballet. It’s been performed since 2014 in Amazon’s cavernous warehouses as robots carry shelves, each weighing more than 1,000 kg, on their backs. The robots cut down on time and human error, but they still have things to learn.
...BUT THEY CAN’T PICK UP THE GROCERIES” 25 Research Horizons
Once an order is received, a robot Sciences Research Council, has just As robots become more common goes to the shelf where the ordered item completed a three-year project into human– place, in our lives, ethical considerations is stored. It picks up the shelf and takes it robot interaction, bringing together aspects become more important. In his lab, Iida to an area where the item is removed and of computer vision, machine learning, public has a robot ‘inventor’, but if the robot placed in a plastic bin, ready for packing engagement, performance and psychology. invents something of value, who owns and sending to the customer. It may sound “Robots are not sensitive to emotions the intellectual property? “At the moment, counterintuitive, but the most difficult part or personality, but personality is the glue the law says that it belongs to the human of this sequence is taking the item from the in terms of how we behave and interact who programmed the robot, but that’s an shelf and putting it in the plastic bin. with each other,” she says. “So how do answer to a legislative question,” says Iida. For Dr Fumiya Iida, this is a typical we improve the way in which robots and “The ethical questions are a little murkier.” example of what he and other roboticists humans understand one another in a However, philosopher Professor Huw call a ‘last metre’ problem. “An Amazon social setting?” This is another example of Price, from the Leverhulme Centre for the order could be anything from a pillow, to a Moravec’s paradox: for most individuals, Future of Intelligence, thinks it will be a long book, to a hat, to a bicycle,” he says. “For being able to read and respond to the time before we need to think about giving a human, it’s generally easy to pick up an physical cues of other people, and adapt robots rights. item without dropping or crushing it – we accordingly, is second nature. For robots, “Think of a dog-lover’s version of the instinctively know how much force to use. however, it’s a challenge. difference between dogs and cats,” he But this is really difficult for a robot.” Gunes’ project focused on artificial says. “Dogs feel pleasure and pain, as well In the 1980s, a group of scientists emotional intelligence: robots that not only as affection, shame and other emotions. gave this kind of problem another name express emotions, but also read cues and Cats are good at faking these things, but – Moravec’s paradox – which essentially respond appropriately. Her team developed inside they’re just mindless killers. On this states that things that are easy for humans computer vision techniques to help robots spectrum, robots are going to be way out are difficult for robots, and vice versa. recognise different emotional expressions, on the cat end (except for the killing bit, “Robots can go all the way to Mars, but micro-expressions and human personalities; hopefully) for the foreseeable future. They they can’t pick up the groceries,” says Iida. and programmed a robot that could come might be good at faking emotions, but One of the goals of Iida’s lab in across as either introverted or extroverted. they’ll have the same inner life as a teddy Cambridge’s Department of Engineering is bear or a toaster. to find effective solutions to various kinds “Eventually we might build robots, of last metre problems. One example is teddy bears and even toasters that do have the Amazon ‘Picking Challenge’, an annual “that last metre is an inner life, and then it will be a different competition in which university robotics matter. But for the moment, the ethical teams from all over the world attempt to the barrier to robots challenges involve machines that will be design robots that can deal with the problem good at behaving in ways that we humans of putting a book into a plastic bin. really being able to interpret as signs of emotions, and good Iida’s team is also working with British at reading our emotions. These machines Airways, who have a last metre problem help humanity” raise important ethical issues – like whether with baggage handling: a process that is we should use them as carers for people almost entirely automated, except for the who can’t tell that they are just machines, point when suitcases of many different “We found that human–robot interaction such as infants and dementia patients – but shapes, sizes and weights need to be put is personality dependent on both sides,” we don’t need to worry about their rights.” onto an aircraft. says Gunes. “A robot that can adapt to “Another interesting question is whether And for the past two summers, they’ve a human’s personality is more engaging, a robot can learn to be ethical,” says been working with fruit and vegetable but the way humans interact with robots Iida. “That’s very interesting scientifically, group G’s Growers to design robots that is also highly influenced by the situation, because it leads to the nature of can harvest lettuces without crushing them. the physicality of the robot and the task consciousness. Robots are going to be a “That last metre is a really interesting at hand. When people interact with each bigger and bigger part of our lives, so we all problem,” Iida says. “It’s the front line in other, it’s often in a task-based manner, need to be thinking about these questions.” robotics because so many things we do in and different tasks bring out different our lives are last metre problems, and that aspects of our personalities, whether last metre is the barrier to robots really being they’re completing that task with another able to help humanity.” person or with a robot.” Although the thought of having a robot It wasn’t just the robots who found some Dr Hatice Gunes to cook dinner or perform other basic daily of the interactions difficult: many of Gunes’ Department of Computer Science tasks may sound attractive, such domestic human subjects found the novelty of talking and Technology (Computer Lab) applications are still a way off becoming with a robot in public affected their ability to [email protected] reality. “Robots are becoming part of our listen and follow directions. society in the areas where they’re needed “For me, it was more interesting Dr Fumiya Iida most – areas like agriculture, medicine, to observe the people rather than to Department of Engineering security and logistics – but they can’t go showcase what we’re doing, mostly [email protected] everywhere instantly,” explains Iida. because people don’t really understand If, as Iida says, the robot revolution is the abilities of these robots,” she says. Professor Huw Price already happening, how will we as humans “But as robots become more available, Faculty of Philosophy and interact with them when they become a hopefully they’ll become demystified.” the Leverhulme Centre for more visible part of our everyday lives? Gunes now aims to focus on the the Future of Intelligence And how will they interact with us? Dr potential of robots and virtual reality [email protected] Hatice Gunes of Cambridge’s Department technology for wellbeing applications, of Computer Science and Technology, with such as coaching, cognitive training Words funding from the Engineering and Physical and elderly care. Sarah Collins 26 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast: What’s next for thinking machines?
Our lives are already enhanced by AI – or at least an AI in its infancy – with technologies using algorithms that help them to learn from our behaviour. As AI grows up and starts to think, not just to learn, we ask how human-like do we want their intelligence to be and what impact will machines have on our jobs? 27 Research Horizons
Artificial intelligence is growing up fast: e are well on the way to component of human-like computers. His work at the CFI as part of the a world in which many They will be needed, for instance, so ‘Kinds of Intelligence’ project, led by Dr W aspects of our daily lives that machines can explain their workings Marta Halina, is asking not only what will depend on AI systems. to humans – an important part of the these tests might look like but also how transparency of decision-making that we their measurement can be built into the What’s next for Within a decade, machines might will require of AI. development of AI. Hernandez-Orallo sees diagnose patients with the learned With funding from the Engineering a very practical application of such tests: expertise of not just one doctor but and Physical Sciences Research Council the future job market. “I can imagine a thinking machines? thousands. They might make judiciary and the Leverhulme Trust, she is building time when universal tests would provide a recommendations based on vast systems that have begun to reason like measure of what’s needed to accomplish a datasets of legal decisions and complex humans through diagrams. Her aim now is job, whether it’s by a human or a machine.” regulations. And they will almost certainly to enable them to move flexibly between Cave is also interested in the impact of know exactly what’s around the corner different “modalities of reasoning”, just as AI on future jobs, discussing this in a report in autonomous vehicles. humans have the agility to switch between on the ethics and governance of AI recently “Machine capabilities are growing,” methods when problem solving. submitted to the House of Lords Select says Dr Stephen Cave, Executive Director Being able to model one aspect of Committee on AI on behalf of researchers of the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of human intelligence in computers raises the at Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial College and Intelligence (CFI). “Machines will perform question of what other aspects would be the University of California at Berkeley. the tasks that we don’t want to: the useful. And in fact how ‘human-like’ would “AI systems currently remain narrow in mundane jobs, the dangerous jobs. And we want AI systems to be? This is what their range of abilities by comparison with a they’ll do the tasks we aren’t capable of – interests Professor José Hernandez-Orallo, human. But the breadth of their capacities those involving too much data for a human from the Universitat Politècnica de València is increasing rapidly in ways that will pose to process, or where the machine is simply in Spain and Visiting Fellow at the CFI. new ethical and governance challenges – faster, better, cheaper.” “We typically put humans as the as well as create new opportunities,” says Dr Mateja Jamnik, AI expert at the ultimate goal of AI because we have Cave. “Many of these risks and benefits Department of Computer Science and an anthropocentric view of intelligence will be related to the impact these new Technology, agrees: “Everything is that places humans at the pinnacle of capacities will have on the economy, and going in the direction of augmenting a monolith,” says Hernandez-Orallo. the labour market in particular.” human performance – helping humans, “But human intelligence is just one of Hernandez-Orallo adds: “Much has cooperating with humans, enabling many kinds. Certain human skills, such been written about the jobs that will be at humans to concentrate on the areas as reasoning, will be important in future risk in the future. This happens every time where humans are intrinsically better systems. But perhaps we want to build there is a major shift in the economy. But such as strategy, creativity and empathy.” systems that ‘fill the gaps that humans just as some machines will do tasks that Part of the attraction of AI requires cannot reach’, whether it’s AI that thinks humans currently carry out, other machines that future technologies perform tasks in non-human ways or AI that doesn’t will help humans do what they currently autonomously, without humans needing think at all. cannot – providing enhanced cognitive to monitor activities every step of the “I believe that future machines can assistance or replacing lost functions such way. In other words, machines of the be more powerful than humans not just as memory, hearing or sight.” future will need to think for themselves. because they are faster but because they Jamnik also sees opportunities in the But, although computers today can have cognitive functionalities that are age of intelligent machines: “As with any outperform humans on many tasks, inherently not human.” revolution, there is change. Yes some including learning from data and making This raises a difficulty, says jobs will become obsolete. But history decisions, they can still trip up on things Hernandez-Orallo: “How do we measure tells us that there will be jobs appearing. that are really quite trivial for us. the intelligence of the systems that we These will capitalise on inherently human Take, for instance, working out the build? Any definition of intelligence qualities. Others will be jobs that we can’t formula for the area of a parallelogram. needs to be linked to a way of measuring even conceive of – memory augmentation Humans might use a diagram to it, otherwise it’s like trying to define practitioners, data creators, data bias visualise how cutting off the corners and electricity without a way of showing it.” correctors, and so on. That’s one reason I reassembling it as a rectangle simplifies The intelligence tests we use today think this is perhaps the most exciting time the problem. Machines, however, may “use – such as psychometric tests or animal in the history of humanity.” calculus or integrate a function. This works, cognition tests – are not suitable for but it’s like using a sledgehammer to crack measuring intelligence of a new kind, he Dr Stephen Cave a nut,” says Jamnik, who was recently explains. Perhaps the most famous test Leverhulme Centre for the appointed Specialist Adviser to the House for AI is that devised by 1950s Cambridge Future of Intelligence (CFI) of Lords Select Committee on AI. computer scientist Alan Turing. To pass the [email protected] “When I was a child, I was fascinated by Turing Test, a computer must fool a human the beauty and elegance of mathematical into believing it is human. “Turing never Dr Mateja Jamnik solutions. I wondered how people came meant it as a test of the sort of AI that is Department of Computer Science up with such intuitive answers. Today, I becoming possible – apart from anything and Technology (Computer Lab) work with neuroscientists and experimental else, it’s all or nothing and cannot be used [email protected] psychologists to investigate this human to rank AI,” says Hernandez-Orallo. ability to reason and think flexibly, and to In his recently published book The Professor José Hernandez-Orallo make computers do the same.” Measure of all Minds, he argues for CFI and Universitat Politècnica de Jamnik believes that AI systems the development of “universal tests of València that can choose so-called heuristic intelligence” – those that measure the [email protected] approaches – employing practical, often same skill or capability independently visual, approaches to problem solving – in a of the subject, whether it’s a robot, Words similar way to humans will be an essential a human or an octopus. Louise Walsh 28 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence
Words Stuart Roberts
Image Talos, as imagined in the film Jason and the Argonauts (1963) 29 Research Horizons
e have been writing about Dr Sarah Dillon is Project Lead of the as dominance vs subjugation), the CFI AI for almost as long as programme – and a devotee of science team is also considering the problems of W stories have been written. fiction and AI storytelling in all its myriad continually perpetuating responses to AI, Fictions about robots, automatons forms. “All the questions being raised and is thinking of recommendations to and oracular brass heads have been about AI today have already been explored mitigate against them in a way that creates with us long before Star Wars’ C-3PO in a very sophisticated fashion, for a very space for more positive – and diverse – AI and 2001’s killer computer HAL. Now, long time, in science fiction,” says Dillon. narratives to flourish. researchers want us to consider why “Science fiction literature and film provide To do so, CFI is establishing the stories we tell ourselves about AI a vast body of thought experiments or partnerships with the wider tech will have an impact on all our futures. imaginative case studies about what might community as well as engaging with the happen in the AI future. Such narratives world’s leading AI thinkers from industry, Credit: Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock Credit: Nearly 3,000 ago, in the Iliad, Homer ought not to be discarded or derided academia, government and the media. described Hephaestus, the god of fire, merely because they’re fiction, but rather In December 2017, CFI submitted written forging women made of gold to serve as thought of as an important dataset. What evidence to the House of Lords Select his handmaidens – enabling the crippled we want to do is convince everyone how Committee on AI. The AI Narratives deity to work and move around his forge powerful AI narratives are and highlight programme also includes looking at underneath Mount Olympus. what effects they can have on our what AI researchers read and how this In 300 BCE, Apollonius Rhodius everyday lives. People outside of literary influences their research (or not). imagined Talos, a giant bronze automaton studies have tended not to know how to All this is an attempt by CFI to make who protected Europa on the Island of deal with this power. sure that future narratives around AI Crete, in his Greek epic poem Argonautica. “What sort of stories are told – and how aren’t bound by the same prejudices and And while the term ‘robot’ was only coined they are told – really matters. Fiction has preconceptions as they have been to date. in the 20th century by Karel Čapek for his influenced science as much as science Says Dillon: “Just consider Google’s play R.U.R (Rossum’s Universal Robots), has influenced fiction, and will continue to photo app tagging the image of an African in which artificial servants rise up against do so. One stream of the project is looking American-woman as a gorilla in 2015, or their masters, we have been imagining directly at how we have talked about new the racist and sexist tweets by Microsoft’s intelligent machines long before we had technologies in the past – and how we can Chatbot in 2016. If AI continues to learn the technology capable of creating them. learn from the communication of other our prejudices then the future looks just Our fascination and appetite for complex technologies when it comes to AI.” as bleak as the past, with the repetition AI in the pages of our novels, in our Citing the often sensationalist, and consolidation of discrimination and movie theatres and on our television misinformed or even disingenuous examples inequality. screens remain undimmed. Two of the of historical narratives around nuclear “Who is telling AI its narratives? Whose best-received TV shows of recent years energy, genetic engineering and stem stories, and which stories, will inform how – HBO’s big-budget Westworld and cells, Dillon and her project colleagues AI interacts with the world? Which novels Channel 4’s Humans – both imagine a Dr Beth Singler and Dr Kanta Dihal suggest are being chosen to ‘teach’ AI morality? world where AI replicants are on hand that stories around emerging technologies What kind of writers are being enlisted to to satisfy every human need and desire can significantly influence how they are script AI–human interaction? – until they reject the ‘life’ of servitude developed, regarded and regulated. “If we can create more diverse literary they have been programmed to fulfil. Exploring the rich array of themes and cinematic AI narratives, this can Last autumn, Bladerunner 2049 took associated with AI in history, myth, fiction feed back into the research and into the cinemagoers into the world originally and public dialogue, the team has been language and data that feeds into actual AI created by Philip K Dick’s seminal Do unsurprised to find that many pivot around systems. By paying close attention to what Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the notion of control: AI as a tool we are stories are doing and how they are doing it, But how do these old and new, unable to master or a tool that will acquire it doesn’t destroy the power they have – it polarised and often binary narratives about agency of its own and turn against us. helps us understand and appreciate that the dawn of the AI age affect, reflect and “The big problem with AI in fiction is power even more. perhaps even infect our way of thinking dystopia,” says Singler, whose award- “In exploring these AI narratives and about the benefits and dangers of AI in the winning short documentary film Pain in their concerns, we will be able to bring new 21st century? As the kind of mechanisation the Machine looked at whether robots knowledge derived from literature and film that existed solely in the minds of should feel pain. “Dystopia can be fun, to current AI debate and hopefully ensure visionaries such as Mary Shelley, Fritz Lang and people are fascinated by AI, but that the more dystopian futures imagined in or Arthur C. Clarke looms closer to reality, most of the narratives are written for such narratives do not become our reality.” we are only just beginning to reflect upon and by young, white men – and that and understand how such technologies directly influences AI researchers and the arrive pre-loaded with meaning, sparking research they do. We are not at the stage Dr Kanta Dihal associations, and media attention, where AI matches human intelligence, Faculty of English and the disproportionate to their capabilities. but if we do get to a superior form of AI Leverhulme Centre for the To that end, Cambridge’s Leverhulme or agency, we will find that they too break Future of Intelligence (CFI) Centre for the Future of Intelligence laws like us. It’s what we do.” [email protected] (CFI) and the Royal Society have come “Isaac Asimov’s legendary Four Laws together to form the AI Narratives research of Robotics, for example, have become so Dr Sarah Dillon programme. It’s the first large-scale ubiquitous that they were referenced in a Faculty of English and CFI project of its kind to look at how AI has, 100-page report by the US Navy, which is [email protected] and is, being portrayed in popular culture slightly terrifying,” says Dihal. “The Laws – and what impact this has not only on are a storytelling device. If Asimov’s Laws Dr Beth Singler readers and movie-goers, but also on worked perfectly there would be no story!” Faraday Institute for Science AI researchers, military and government As well as identifying recurrent and Religion and CFI bodies, and the wider public. dichotomies in popular AI narratives (such [email protected] 30 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence
he future used to belong to The scenario above never happened. robots and drones that may be designed science fiction writers. But the Or at least, it hasn’t happened yet. or repurposed for attacks – as well as an T technologies once imagined But it is one of several possible real-life unprecedented rise in the use of ‘bots’ by Philip K. Dick and Ray Bradbury scenarios envisaged by some of the to manipulate everything from elections now belong to the realm of science world’s leading experts on the impacts of and the news agenda to social media. It fact. What visions of the future AI – who joined forces to author and sign issues a clarion call for governments and might the world’s leading AI experts a ground-breaking report that sounds the corporations worldwide to address the predict if you put them in a room alarm about the potential future misuse of clear and present danger inherent in the together? Cambridge’s Centre for AI by rogue states, terrorists and malicious myriad applications of AI. the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) groups or individuals. In addition, the report – The and Oxford’s Future of Humanity The report forecasts dramatic growth Malicious Use of Artificial Intelligence: Institute decided to find out… during the next decade in the use of Forecasting, Prevention, and Mitigation 3131 Research Horizons
– also identifies potential solutions Likewise, the proliferation of cyber- hyped promises failed to match the and interventions to allay some of the physical systems will allow attackers to reality of how difficult it has been to make potentially catastrophic risks discussed. deploy or repurpose such systems for progress on these technologies,” explains Experts in the fields of machine learning, harmful ends (such as turning commercial Avin. “With all the rapid progress in AI safety, drones, cybersecurity, lethal drones into face-targeting missiles or recent years, brought about in part by autonomous weapons systems and holding critical infrastructure to ransom). much more capable processors, there counterterrorism, from organisations The rise of autonomous weapons systems has yet to be a clear point of maturation, such as Google, OpenAI, DeepMind and in the battlefield also risks the loss of of acknowledging that this technology is Microsoft, as well as leading thinkers from meaningful human control and increases going to change everyone’s lives this time Cambridge, Yale, Oxford and Princeton the prospects of targeted autonomous around, and we need to start planning for Universities (among others), came together attacks. the potential risks and benefits.” in Oxford to address the critical challenges Meanwhile, in the political sphere, Avin and Ó hÉigeartaigh suggest that around AI in the 21st century. detailed analytics and the automation CSER is uniquely placed to contribute Together, the participants highlighted of message creation present powerful to discussions around the study and important changes to the strategic security tools for manipulating public opinion mitigation of risks associated with landscape, which could include: more on previously unimaginable scales. emerging technologies and human attacks, due to the scalable automation of “The aggregation of information activity. For the purpose of this report, attacks; harder to defend against attacks, by states and corporations, and the this meant being able to convene experts due to the dynamic nature of AI; and increasing ability to analyse and act in machine learning, cybersecurity more attackers, as skill and computing on this information at scale using AI and the broader legal, socio-political resources become increasingly available. could enable new levels of surveillance implications. The result is a report “The consequences of such and invasions of privacy, and threaten that lays out how and why AI will alter developments are difficult to predict in to radically shift the power between the landscape of risk for citizens, detail, and not all participants agreed individuals, corporations and states,” organisations and states. on all conclusions,” says Dr Shahar Avin adds Ó hÉigeartaigh. “It is often the case that AI systems of CSER who co-chaired the workshop don’t merely reach human levels of with Miles Brundage from Oxford. performance but significantly surpass “However, there was broad consensus on them,” says the report. “It is troubling, predictions around attacks that are novel “AI is a game but necessary, to consider the either in the form of attacks on AI systems changer and this implications of superhuman hacking, or because they are carried out by AI surveillance, persuasion, and physical systems; more targeted attacks, through report has imagined target identification, as well as AI automated identification of victims; capabilities that are subhuman but and unattributable attacks through AI what the world could nevertheless much more scalable than intermediaries.” human labour.” “AI is a game changer and this report look like in the next Adds Ó hÉigeartaigh: “Whether it’s has imagined what the world could criminals training machines to hack or look like in the next five to ten years,” five to ten years” ‘phish’ at human levels of performance adds Dr Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh, Executive or privacy-eliminating surveillance and Director of CSER and one of the report profiling – the full range of impacts on signatories. “We live in a world that could To mitigate such risk, the authors security is vast.” become fraught with day-to-day hazards explore several interventions to reduce from the misuse of AI and we need to take threats associated with the malicious ‘The Malicious Use of Artificial ownership of the problems – because the use of AI. They include recommendations Intelligence: Forecasting, Prevention, and risks are real. There are choices that we for more engaged policy making and Mitigation’ is the result of a workshop co- need to make now. Our report is a call more responsible development of the organised by CSER and the University of to arms for governments, institutions technology, an opportunity to learn from Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. and individuals across the globe.” the best practices of other risky fields, He adds: “For many decades, hype and a call for a “broader conversation”. was outstripping fact in terms of AI and The report also highlights key areas machine learning. Now, the situation for further research, including at the is being reversed and we have to rethink intersection of AI and cybersecurity, on all the ways we currently do things. openness and information sharing of risky This report looks at the practices that just capabilities, on the promotion of a culture don’t work anymore – and suggests broad of responsibility, and on seeking both approaches that might help: for example, institutional and technological solutions how to design software and hardware to to tip the balance in favour of those make it less hackable – and what type of defending against attacks. Dr Shahar Avin laws and international regulations While the design and use of Centre for the Study of might work in tandem with this.” dangerous AI systems by malicious Existential Risk (CSER) The report also identifies three actors has been highlighted in high- [email protected] security domains (digital, physical and profile settings (such as the US Congress political) as particularly relevant to the and White House, separately), the Dr Seán Ó hÉigeartaigh malicious use of AI. It suggests that AI intersection of AI and malicious use on a CSER will disrupt the trade-off between scale massive scale has not yet been analysed [email protected] and efficiency, and allow large-scale, comprehensively – until now. highly efficient and targeted attacks “The field of AI has gone through Words on digital systems. several so-called ‘winters’, when over- Stuart Roberts 32 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence NEEDLES & HAYSTACKS Police at the “front line” of difficult risk-based judgements are trialling an AI system trained to give guidance using the outcomes of five years of criminal histories.
Words Louise Walsh 33 Research Horizons
“ t’s 3am on Saturday morning. The new serious offence such as murder, “Not all errors are equal,” says Sheena man in front of you has been caught aggravated violence, sexual crimes or Urwin, head of criminal justice at Durham I in possession of drugs. He has no robbery); moderate risk (likely to commit a Constabulary and a graduate of the weapons, and no record of any violent non-serious offence); or low risk (unlikely Institute of Criminology’s Police Executive or serious crimes. Do you let the man to commit any offence). Master of Studies Programme. “The worst out on police bail the next morning, “The need for good prediction is error would be if the model forecasts low or keep him locked up for two days to not just about identifying the dangerous and the offender turned out high.” ensure he comes to court on Monday?” people,” explains Sherman. “It’s also about “In consultation with the Durham police, identifying people who definitely are not we built a system that is 98% accurate The scenario Dr Geoffrey Barnes is dangerous. For every case of a suspect on at avoiding this most dangerous form of describing is fictitious and yet the decision bail who kills someone, there are tens of error – the ‘false negative’ – the offender is one that happens hundreds of thousands thousands of non-violent suspects who are who is predicted to be relatively safe, but of times a year across the UK: whether locked up longer than necessary.” then goes on to commit a serious violent to detain a suspect in police custody or Durham Constabulary want to identify offence,” adds Barnes. “AI is infinitely release them on bail. The outcome of this the ‘moderate-risk’ group – who account adjustable and when constructing an AI Credit: © David Moore, from the series ‘28 days’ [2011] decision could be major for the suspect, for just under half of all suspects according tool it’s important to weigh up the most for public safety and for the police. to the statistics generated by HART. ethically appropriate route to take.” “The police officers who make these These individuals might benefit from their The researchers also stress that custody decisions are highly experienced,” Checkpoint programme, which aims to HART’s output is for guidance only, and explains Barnes. “But all their knowledge tackle the root causes of offending and that the ultimate decision is that of the and policing skills can’t tell them the one offer an alternative to prosecution that they police officer in charge. thing they need to now most about the hope will turn moderate risks into low risks. “HART uses Durham’s data and so it’s suspect – how likely is it that he or she only relevant for offences committed in is going to cause major harm if they are the jurisdiction of Durham Constabulary. released? This is a job that really scares “The tool helps This limitation is one of the reasons why people – they are at the front line of risk- such models should be regarded as based decision-making.” identify the few supporting human decision-makers not Barnes and Professor Lawrence replacing them,” explains Barnes. “These Sherman, who leads the Jerry Lee ‘needles in the technologies are not, of themselves, silver Centre for Experimental Criminology in bullets for law enforcement, and neither are the University of Cambridge’s Institute haystack’ who pose they sinister machinations of a so-called of Criminology, have been working with surveillance state.” police forces around the world to ask a major danger to Some decisions, says Sherman, whether AI can help. have too great an impact on society and “Imagine a situation where the officer the community” the welfare of individuals for them to be has the benefit of a hundred thousand, and influenced by an emerging technology. more, real previous experiences of custody Where AI-based tools provide great decisions?” says Sherman. “No one person “It’s needles and haystacks,” says promise, however, is to use the forecasting can have that number of experiences, but a Sherman. “On the one hand, the dangerous of offenders’ risk level for effective ‘triage’, machine can.” ‘needles’ are too rare for anyone to meet as Sherman describes: “The police service In mid-2016, with funding from the often enough to spot them on sight. On the is under pressure to do more with less, to Monument Trust, the researchers installed other, the ‘hay’ poses no threat and keeping target resources more efficiently, and to the world’s first AI tool for helping police them in custody wastes resources and may keep the public safe. make custodial decisions in Durham even do more harm than good.” “The tool helps identify the few ‘needles Constabulary. A randomised controlled trial is in the haystack’ who pose a major danger Called the Harm Assessment Risk Tool currently under way in Durham to test the to the community, and whose release (HART), the AI-based technology uses use of Checkpoint among those forecast should be subject to additional layers of 104,000 histories of people previously as moderate risk. review. At the same time, better triaging arrested and processed in Durham custody HART is also being refreshed with can lead to the right offenders receiving suites over the course of five years, with more recent data – a step that Barnes release decisions that benefit both them a two-year follow-up for each custody explains will be an important part of this and society.” decision. Using a method called “random sort of tool: “A human decision-maker forests”, the model looks at vast numbers might adapt immediately to a changing of combinations of ‘predictor values’, the context – such as a prioritisation of majority of which focus on the suspect’s certain offences, like hate crime – but Dr Geoffrey Barnes offending history, as well as age, gender the same cannot necessarily be said of Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental and geographical area. an algorithmic tool. This suggests the Criminology, Institute of “These variables are combined in need for careful and constant scrutiny Criminology thousands of different ways before a final of the predictors used and for frequently [email protected] forecasted conclusion is reached,” explains refreshing the algorithm with more recent Barnes. “Imagine a human holding this historical data.” Professor Lawrence Sherman number of variables in their head, and No prediction tool can be perfect. Jerry Lee Centre for Experimental making all of these connections before An independent validation study of HART Criminology, Institute of making a decision. Our minds simply found an overall accuracy of around 63%. Criminology can’t do it.” But, says Barnes, the real power of machine [email protected] The aim of HART is to categorise learning comes not from the avoidance of any whether in the next two years an offender error at all but from deciding which errors you Sheena Urwin is high risk (highly likely to commit a most want to avoid. Durham Constabulary 34 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence IN TECH WE TRUST? Fairness, trust and transparency are qualities we usually associate with organisations or individuals. Today, these attributes might also apply to algorithms. As machine learning systems become more complex and pervasive, Cambridge researchers believe it’s time for new thinking about new technology. 35 Research Horizons
r Jat Singh is familiar with machine learning is changing the way Googling her name, she was shocked to breaking new ground and we live and work. be presented with ads suggesting that she D working across disciplines. Even “Not long ago, many markets were had been arrested. After much research, so, he and colleagues were pleasantly traded on exchanges by people in pits she discovered that “black-sounding” surprised by how much enthusiasm screaming and yelling,” Weller recalls. names were 25% more likely to result in has greeted their new Strategic “Today, most market making and order the delivery of this kind of advertising. Research Initiative on Trustworthy matching is handled by computers. Like Sweeney, Weller is both disturbed Technologies, which brings together Automated algorithms can typically provide and intrigued by examples of machine- science, technology and humanities tighter, more responsive markets – and learned discrimination. “It’s a worry,” he researchers from across the University. liquid markets are good for society.” acknowledges. “And people sometimes But cutting humans out of the loop stop there – they assume it’s a case of In fact, Singh, a researcher in Cambridge’s can have unintended consequences, as garbage in, garbage out, end of story. Department of Computer Science and the flash crash of 2010 shows. During In fact, it’s just the beginning, because Technology, has been collaborating 36 minutes on 6 May, nearly one trillion we’re developing techniques that can with lawyers for several years: “A legal dollars were wiped off US stock markets automatically detect and remove some perspective is paramount when you’re as an unusually large sell order produced forms of bias.” researching the technical dimensions to an emergent coordinated response from Transparency, reliability and compliance, accountability and trust in automated algorithms. “The flash crash trustworthiness are at the core of Weller’s emerging ICT; although the Computer Lab was an important example illustrating work at the Leverhulme Centre for the is not the usual home for lawyers, we have that over time, as we have more AI agents Future of Intelligence and The Alan Turing two joining soon.” operating in the real world, they may Institute. His project grapples with how Governance and public trust present interact in ways that are hard to predict,” to make machine-learning decisions some of the greatest challenges in he says. interpretable, develop new ways to ensure technology today. The European General Algorithms are also beginning to be that AI systems perform well in real-world Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), involved in critical decisions about our lives settings, and examine whether empathy is which comes into force this year, has and liberty. In medicine, machine learning is possible – or desirable – in AI. brought forward debates such as helping diagnose diseases such as cancer Machine learning systems are here whether individuals have a ‘right to an and diabetic retinopathy; in US courts, to stay. Whether they are a force for explanation’ regarding decisions made by algorithms are used to inform decisions good rather than a source of division machines, and introduces stiff penalties about bail, sentencing and parole; and on and discrimination depends partly on for breaching data protection rules. “With social media and the web, our personal researchers such as Singh and Weller. penalties including fines of up to 4% of data and browsing history shape the news The stakes are high, but so are the global turnover or €20 million, people stories and advertisements we see. opportunities. Universities have a vital are realising that they need to take data How much we trust the ‘black box’ role to play, both as critic and conscience protection much more seriously,” he says. of machine learning systems, both of society. Academics can help society Singh is particularly interested in how as individuals and society, is clearly imagine what lies ahead and decide what data-driven systems and algorithms – important. “There are settings, such as we want from machine learning – and what including machine learning – will soon criminal justice, where we need to be it would be wise to guard against. underpin and automate everything from able to ask why a system arrived at its Weller believes the future of work is a transport networks to council services. conclusion – to check that appropriate huge issue: “Many jobs will be substantially As we work, shop and travel, computers process was followed, and to enable altered if not replaced by machines in and mobile phones already collect, meaningful challenge,” says Weller. coming decades. We need to think about transmit and process much data about us; “Equally, to have effective real-world how to deal with these big changes.” as the ‘Internet of Things’ continues deployment of algorithmic systems, And academics must keep talking to instrument the physical world, machines people will have to trust them.” as well as thinking. “We’re grappling will increasingly mediate and influence But even if we can lift the lid on these with pressing and important issues,” he our lives. black boxes, how do we interpret what’s concludes. “As technical experts we need It’s a future that raises profound issues going on inside? “There are many kinds to engage with society and talk about what of privacy, security, safety and ultimately of transparency,” he explains. “A user we’re doing so that policy makers can try trust, says Singh, whose research is contesting a decision needs a different to work towards policy that’s technically funded by an Engineering and Physical kind of transparency to a developer who and legally sensible.” Sciences Research Council Fellowship: wants to debug a system. And a third form “We work on mechanisms for better of transparency might be needed to ensure transparency, control and agency in a system is accountable if something goes systems, so that, for instance, if I give wrong, for example an accident involving Dr Jat Singh data to someone or something, there are a driverless car.” Department of Computer Science means for ensuring they’re doing the right If we can make them trustworthy and and Technology (Computer Lab) things with it. We are also active in policy transparent, how can we ensure that [email protected] discussions to help better align the worlds algorithms do not discriminate unfairly of technology and law.” against particular groups? While it might be Dr Adrian Weller What it means to trust machine learning useful for Google to advertise products it Department of Engineering, systems also concerns Dr Adrian Weller. ‘thinks’ we are most likely to buy, it is more the Leverhulme Centre for the Before becoming a senior research fellow disquieting to discover the assumptions it Future of Intelligence and in the Department of Engineering and a makes based on our name or postcode. The Alan Turing Insititute Turing Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute, When Latanya Sweeney, Professor of [email protected] he spent many years working in trading Government and Technology in Residence for leading investment banks and hedge at Harvard University, tried to track Words funds, and has seen first-hand how down one of her academic papers by Becky Allen 36 Spotlight: Artificial intelligence 37 Research Horizons
n any given day, some of the “Principled AI is almost an old-fashioned where the best commercial applications world’s brightest minds in the way of thinking about the world,” says are for their platform. O areas of AI and machine learning Chatrath. “Humans are capable of making AI and machine learning companies can be found riding the train between good decisions quickly, and probabilistic like PROWLER.io are clearly tapping into Cambridge and London King’s Cross. models like ours are able to replicate that, what could be a massive growth area but with millions of data points. Data isn’t for the UK economy: PwC estimates that Five of the biggest tech companies in the king: the model is king. And that’s what AI could add £232 billion to the economy world – Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon principled AI means.” by 2030; and the government’s Industrial and Microsoft – all have offices at one Could PROWLER.io be the next Strategy describes investments aimed or both ends of the train line. Apart from big success story from the so-called at making the UK a global centre for AI the tech giants, however, both cities (and ‘Cambridge cluster’ of knowledge- and data-driven innovation. But given Oxford, the third corner of the UK’s so- intensive firms? In just under two years, the big salaries that can come with a called golden triangle) also support thriving the company has grown to more than career in big tech, how can universities ecosystems of start-ups. Over the past 60 employees, has filed multiple patents prevent a ‘brain drain’ in their computer decade, start-ups based on AI and machine and published papers. Many of the science, engineering and mathematics learning, in Cambridge and elsewhere, have people working at the company have departments? seen explosive growth. deep links with the University and its The University has a long tradition of Of course, it’s not unexpected that research base, and many have worked entrepreneurial researchers who have a cluster of high-tech companies would for other Cambridge start-ups. Like any built and sold multiple companies while sprout up next to one of the world’s new company, what PROWLER.io needs maintaining their academic careers, leading universities. But what is it that to grow is talent, whether it’s coming running labs and teaching students. makes Cambridge, a small city on the from Cambridge or from farther afield. “People from academia are joining us edge of the Fens, such a good place to “There’s so much talent here already, and feeding back into academia – in start a business? but it’s also relatively easy to convince Cambridge, there’s this culture of ideas “In my experience, Silicon Valley is 10% people to move to Cambridge,” says going back and forth,” says Chatrath. tech and 90% hype, but Cambridge is just Rasmussen. “Even with the uncertainty “Of course some people will choose to the opposite,” says Vishal Chatrath, CEO pursue a career in industry, but Cambridge of PROWLER.io, a Cambridge-based AI has this great tradition of academics company. “As an entrepreneur, I want to choosing to pursue both paths – perhaps bring world-changing technology to market. “In my experience, one will take precedence over the other for The way you do that is to make something a time, but it is possible here to be both an that’s never existed before and create the Silicon Valley is 10% academic and an entrepreneur.” science behind it. Cambridge, with its rich “I don’t know of any other university history of mathematicians, has the kind of tech and 90% hype, in the world that lets you do this in terms scientific ambition to do that.” of IP. It’s a pretty unique set-up that I can “The ecosystem in Cambridge is but Cambridge is start a business, raise venture capital, really healthy,” says Professor Carl and still retain a research position and Edward Rasmussen from Cambridge’s just the opposite” do open-ended research. I feel very Department of Engineering, and Chair of lucky,” says Dr Alex Kendall, who recently PROWLER.io. “The company has been completed his PhD in Professor Roberto expanding at an incredible rate, and that comes along with working for a Cipolla’s group in the Department of I think this is something that can only start-up, there’s so much going on Engineering, as well as founding Wayve, happen in Cambridge. here that even if a start-up isn’t a Cambridge-based machine learning PROWLER.io is developing what ultimately successful, there are always company. “A lot of other universities it calls the world’s first ‘principled’ AI new opportunities for talented people wouldn’t allow this, but here you can – decision-making platform, which could because the ecosystem is so rich.” and it’s resulted in some pretty amazing be used in a variety of sectors, including “Entrepreneurs in Cambridge really companies.” autonomous driving, logistics, gaming support one another – people often call “I didn’t get into this field because I and finance. Most AI decision-making each other up and bounce ideas around,” thought it would be useful or that I’d start platforms tend to view the world like says Carol Cheung, an Investment lots of companies – I got into it because an old-fashioned flowchart, in which Associate at Cambridge Innovation I thought it was really interesting,” says the world is static. But in the real world, Capital (CIC). “You don’t often see that Professor Zoubin Ghahramani, one of every time a decision is made, there are degree of collaboration in other places.” Cambridge’s high-profile entrepreneurial certain parameters to take into account. CIC is a builder of high-growth academics, who splits his time between “If you could take every decision- technology companies in the Cambridge the Department of Engineering and his making point and treat it as an autonomous Cluster, and has been an important Chief Scientist role at Uber. “There were AI agent, you could understand the addition to the Cambridge ecosystem. It so many false starts in AI when people incentives under which the decision is provides long-term support to companies thought this is going to be very useful made,” says Chatrath. “Every time these that helps to bridge the critical middle and it wasn’t. Five years ago, AI was like agents make a decision, it changes the stage of commercial development – the any other academic field, but now it’s environment, and the agents have an ‘valley of death’ between when a company changing so fast – and we’ve got such awareness of all the other agents. All first receives funding and when it begins a tremendous concentration of the right these things work together to make the to generate steady revenue – and is kind of talent here in Cambridge to take best decision.” a preferred investor for the University advantage of it.” For example, autonomous cars of Cambridge. One of CIC’s recent running PROWLER.io’s platform would investments was to lead a £10 million communicate with one another to alleviate funding round for PROWLER.io, and it Words traffic jams by re-routing automatically. will work with the company to understand Sarah Collins 38 This Cambridge Life The archaeologist who started her own dig aged seven
“Oh my goodness, you’ve found an Iron Age pot” Credit: Nick Saffell
or most children, digging for years, the trench was two metres deep. Best of all, Christ’s Hospital School offered hidden treasure is over in an It had retaining planks to reinforce the archaeology A level. I got a place and in my F afternoon. But having started to sides and a ladder to get in and out. We first term Time Team arrived at the school. excavate a mound at the bottom of her used spades and trowels but we weren’t I was allowed to skip some of my classes garden, Jennifer Bates kept on digging. allowed a mattock. to join them, and spent three glorious days She went on to study archaeology as digging at Alfoldean in Sussex. an undergraduate, postgraduate and When we dug deeper, we began to now research scientist at Cambridge. find bits of a pot. It was quite rough and I didn’t think I was good enough for When her supervisor suggested she not very attractive with white marks that Cambridge or to study archaeology. might balance her academic work we later discovered were shellfish. I got My archaeology teacher said: “Don’t be with something different, the pastime some books out of the library and read daft – you’re an archaeologist through and she chose was intergalactic. up about conserving the pot. I carefully through.” I applied to Trinity College and pieced together the bits. got in. I had the most fantastic three years I became an archaeologist when I was and was lucky enough to work in Turkey seven. We moved house on the Isle of “Oh my goodness, you’ve found an at Kilise Tepe with Professor Nicholas Wight and there was a grassy mound at Iron Age pot.” That’s what the county Postgate. I went to UCL to do a master’s the end of the garden. It was just a heap archaeologist Dr Ruth Waller said when and returned to Cambridge for my PhD. of spoil left over by previous owners. she came to give a talk in the village. I’d Because we were bored, my friend Adam tentatively shown her my pot, expecting Everyone has a mid-PhD crisis – even and I started digging into it. First we it to be dismissed. But she was very if they think they won’t. When I had found a rusty nail and some bits of wire. excited, explaining what it would have mine, my supervisor Dr Cameron Petrie We carefully labelled and stored them. been used for and how we could tell it suggested that I should take up a hobby, was a local ware. something quite different to take me away We were both great fans of Time from Cambridge for a while. On a trip home Team. Watching it made us think we too As I approached GCSEs, my parents to the Isle of Wight, I came across the 501st might find something interesting. Each spotted an ad in the local paper for UK Garrison branch. They’re a not-for-profit weekend and every holiday we carried scholarships at an independent school – a costuming organisation dedicated to on with our personal dig. After about six charity that charges fees on a sliding scale. recreating Star Wars costumes. 39 Research Horizons
I’ve always been a massive Star Wars fan. Within days of meeting the 501st UK Garrison, I was making my own costume and meeting a group of people just as geeky as I am. We have loads of fun making appearances and raising money for good causes – and I’ve learned new skills, everything from how to trim plastic Robotics armour to how to wire electrics and how to airbrush alien headdresses!
The archaeology that interests me is how people actually lived: what they eBooks on ate, what they farmed, what they wore – even how they organised going to the loo – and how these aspects of everyday life intersected with their identity.
Ancient farmers were pretty clever: they knew it was unwise to rely on just a few plants. My current work focuses on the crops grown in the Indus Valley of South Asia during the period 3200–1500 BC. My most recent research, carried out with colleagues from Cambridge and Banaras Hindu University in India, suggests that people cultivated a much broader range of crops than we thought. There are important implications for today’s world.
I think it was a big mistake for the government to drop A-level archaeology. There’s real value in learning about the past, through the combination of skills it draws together, to the way it encourages us to reflect on our own actions.
My childhood excavation came to an A collection of 49 leading abrupt end when I was 13. I came home from school to find a skip in the drive. Robotics titles from our My trench, the product of more than six years’ digging, had been demolished to make way for an observatory my dad was Hot Topics series building to look at the stars. I wasn’t best pleased – but I cheered up when I was allowed to drive the digger.
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Dr Jennifer Bates Department of Archaeology [email protected]
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Credit: Sculpture by Rona Pondick