InspiredResearch Summer 2016 Issue 8 News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford TheThe futurefuture ofof ArtificialArtificial IntelligenceIntelligence

Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis gives Strachey Lecture – p26

In search of the New Forest cicada: Developing new tools for acoustic ecology – p6

Preventing lunchtime attacks: Fighting insider threats with eye movement biometrics – p12

Robots and the moral maze: Towards a code of ethics for artificial intelligence – p23

CompSciOxford DepartmentOfComputerScienceUniversityOfOxford Inspired Research Letter from the is a twice-yearly newsletter published by the Department of Computer Science at the University Head of Department of Oxford. If you would like to learn more One of the many rewards of academic life at Oxford is the constant about anything you read in these stream of incredible academic speakers that pass through our doors. A pages, please get in touch: quick look at our forthcoming seminar series tells me that in the coming [email protected] week, I can hear about ‘The expressiveness of decidable fixpoint logics’, ‘Fighting modern cyber criminals’, and ‘Semantic alignment for agent To subscribe to future issues, interactions’. This is not a phenomenon restricted to the Department e-mail: [email protected] of Computer Science, of course: Oxford is one of the world’s great To download previous issues, visit intellectual meeting places, and a visit to Oxford is very like a pilgrimage www.cs.ox.ac.uk/inspiredresearch for most academics.

Editorial board Of all the remarkable speakers I have had the pleasure to see at Oxford, Suzanna Marsh (Editor) none has been more remarkable than Demis Hassabis, who gave the Hilary Term Strachey Lecture in February 2016 (see page 26). Demis is a Kiri Walden (Sub-Editor) founder and CEO of DeepMind, the London-based artificial intelligence Suvarna Designs (Designer) company that was acquired by Google in 2014 for $400m. We invited Demis to give this lecture a year ago, and had a strong hunch that it Benjamin Neal was going to be a popular event. In anticipation of this, and thanks to Daniel Marsden generous financial support from Oxford Asset Management, we were Daniel Neville able to book Christopher Wren’s Sheldonian Theatre for the lecture, with Dima Pasechnik a reception afterwards in the Divinity School. The stage was set for a special occasion. However, nothing prepared us for the deluge of interest Emma Dunlop that Demis’s lecture generated. All 800 tickets were taken within 48 hours Faris Abou-Saleh of release, and we were so overwhelmed by pleas for additional tickets Helena Webb that we booked another 300-seat lecture theatre and had the event live Jason Nurse streamed there. Martha Lewis On the day, Demis arrived complete with a camera crew making a film Maureen York of his life, and I had the very odd experience of walking through Oxford Peter Jeavons with Demis making smalltalk, while a camera crew filmed us from across Sarah Baldwin the road. (A PhD in Computer Science doesn’t prepare you for things like Seyyed Shah this…) The lecture itself was a joy – a model of what a Strachey Lecture should be, pitched perfectly, with plenty of good humour and much Shoshannah Holdom food for thought. So, you are probably asking yourself, why all the fuss? Thomas Lukasiewicz Well, DeepMind’s core technology is deep learning – probably the most Will Smith active research area in Computer Science at present. Deep learning has made huge progress over the past decade, and no clearer evidence of this is provided by the fact that, just a week after Demis’s Oxford lecture, Contributors DeepMind triumphed in a series of matches in which a self-taught AI Alex Kavvos Monica Wilson programme comprehensively defeated one of the world’s best Go players. Alex Rogers Nathan Walk The series of matches made headlines across the globe. With Demis Andrew Martin Niel de Beaudrap giving his Oxford lecture just a week before the Go tournament, everyone present at the lecture felt they were witnessing history in the making. And Bushra AlAhmadi Paula Boddington indeed, they were. David Gavaghan Reuben Binns David Hobbs Sam Littley In other exciting news, I’m delighted to be able to Helena Webb Sharon Lloyd say that Sir Jonathan Ive, head of design at Apple, Ivan Martinovic Shimon Whiteson Inc., will receive an honorary degree at the annual Jassim Happa Stephen Pulman encaenia event in June (page 3). Sir Jonathan is Katherine Fletcher Troy Astarte probably the most influential industrial designer of Laura Jones Ursula Martin the past 50 years: amongst other things, he designed Lucy Crittenden the iPad and iPhone. He designed the iPod! Matty Hoban Michael Wooldridge Professor Michael Wooldridge May 2016

2 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford NEWS Apple’s Chief Design for a range of Apple products, including the ground-breaking News in brief Officer Sir Jonathan original iMac in the late 1990s, the Ive to receive iPod, and the iPhone. Apart from being commercially successful on honorary degree a truly global scale, his trailblazing designs have dramatically influenced not just the look and feel of these We are delighted to announce that devices, but the way we think Sir Jonathan Ive, the Chief Design about and interact with technology Officer at Apple, Inc., will receive an itself. Perhaps the best way we can honorary degree from the University summarise Sir Jonathan’s influence of Oxford at the University’s annual would be to point out that most Encaenia ceremony, this year being people reading this announcement DPhil student Elizabeth Phillips has held on 22 June 2016. online will do so on a device either been selected as the only student designed or directly influenced by alongside nine UK government Sir Jonathan’s nomination from the him. officials to participate in a US Department of Computer Science government-sponsored exchange recognises his iconic, hugely We very much look forward to programme to identify the top influential, and incredibly successful welcoming Sir Jonathan to Oxford ten leaders in UK Cyber Security. contributions to industrial design. in June. Participants were selected by Sir Jonathan was the chief designer the US Department of State and the US Embassy in London. The programme enables participants to learn about US efforts to protect digital infrastructure, ensure free flow of information, security and privacy of data, and the integrity of networks. Elizabeth met President Obama at the ‘Town Hall’ he hosted in London in April.

Oxford involved explore issues in privacy, ethics, of our daily lives will be connected, trust, reliability, acceptability, and in one way or another, to the digital in new Internet security (known as PETRAS). world. Physical objects and devices of Things (IoT) will be able to interact with each The project is part of IoTUK, an other, ourselves, and the wider Research Hub integrated £40 million initiative virtual world. But, before this can between government, industry, happen, there must be trust and the research community and the confidence in how the Internet Department of Computer Science public sector to help advance UK of Things works, its security and academics, Professors Andrew global leadership in the IoT and its resilience. By harnessing our Martin, Sadie Creese and Kasper increase adoption of high quality world-leading research excellence Rasmussen are involved in the IoT technologies and services by this PETRAS research hub newly announced £23 million businesses and the public sector in will accelerate IoT technology Internet of Things (IoT) Research the UK, benefiting citizens. The hub innovation and bring benefit[s] to Hub. They have been working with will draw in substantial support from society and business.’ fellow Oxford Professors, Luciano over 47 partners from industry and Floridi of the Oxford Internet the public sector. Institute and David De Roure of the Oxford e-Research Centre. Professor Philip Nelson, the Engineering Physical and Live Oxford is one of a consortium of Sciences Research Council’s nine UK universities which will (EPSRC) Chief Executive, said, ‘In work over a three-year period to the not too distant future almost all

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 3 NEWS News in brief Professor Bill Roscoe wins MPLS Oxford climbed to top spot in The Sunday Times University Lifetime Award Guide 2016 league table for Computer Science. It also took Professor Bill Roscoe has been third place (best in the UK) in the given a lifetime award by the Oxford QS World University Rankings University Mathematical, Physical 2016 for Computer Science and and Life Sciences Division for Information Systems. In the Times external engagement and promoting Higher Education World University impact. Rankings Oxford has consolidated its position as one of the world’s The former Head of Department has top universities. Overall Oxford been recognised for his pioneering was the top European University work applying formal verification in the rankings (2nd in the world), tools in industry since the late 1980s, and in subject-specific tables for including the invention of the FDR Engineering and Technology the Software Verification Tool. University was rated as 2nd in theoretical research. Furthermore, Europe and 6th in the world. He says of his award, ‘It has been interaction with these users has been wonderful to see so many real-world a regular source of inspiration for my The Alan Turing Institute (ATI) held users of what originally seemed like research: a real virtuous circle!’ a symposium on reproducibility for data-intensive research. Reproducibility is both a technical Degree application numbers climb and a socio-cultural issue, requiring new metadata systems, technical Application figures for the Oxford undergraduate Computer Science degree architectures, workflows and programmes have risen for the 9th consecutive year. The department research working practices in an received 683 applications across the 3 degrees: an increase of around increasingly open and transparent 18% on last year’s figures. The biggest increase was seen in applications environment. The ATI convened to the Computer Science and Philosophy course, with applications up by an inter-disciplinary group of approximately 70%. researchers and data scientists to discuss these challenges in sectors Computer Science now has the second highest ratio of applications to in which the ATI intends to have places of any subject at Oxford – more competitive even than Law. Just over greatest impact, for example in 80 students were offered places. health, medicine, bioscience, urban environments, finance, transport, There has also been a significant increase in applications to the full-time social sciences and digital media. MSc Computer Science degree for entry in 2016. The course saw a total number of applications of 433; more than 28% higher than the figure for University of Oxford Women in entry in 2015. Science is a new project which has interviewed 39 women scientists, all working at Oxford. Blanca Rodriguez, Professor of Computational Medicine, was one of the women interviewed. The aim of the project is to share a broad range of successful women’s experience, as a way to help and encourage other women’s career decisions and choices. You can read the pages on Blanca and the other inspiring women who took part at the project website: http:// goo.gl/xh2zCD © Paul Tait

4 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford NEWS Michael Wooldridge Computing Machinery. Mike is the News in brief made an ACM only new Fellow from the UK. Fellow Mike has been specifically recognised for his contributions The winners of the 2015 Valuable We are delighted to announce that to multi-agent systems and the Artifacts Prize were Departmental our Head of Department, Professor formalization of rational action in Researchers Benoit Barbot, Michael Wooldridge has been made multi-agent environments. Alexandru Mereacre, and Nicola a Fellow of ACM, the Association for Paoletti, along with Andrea Patanè (University of Catania). The winning project was HeartVerify, which is a plug-and- play framework for the analysis and verification of pacemaker software and personalised heart models, compatible with MATLAB. The winners collected a cheque for £500. The prize is sponsored alumnus Dr Steve Moyle. Three Computer Science The Vienna Center for Logic and Algorithms (VCLA) has academics nominated for awarded DPhil student Maximilian Schleich, the Honourable Mention teaching awards for Outstanding International © Paul Tait Master Thesis. Maximilian’s thesis Three of the department’s category. The OUSU student-led entitled ‘Learning Regression academics have been shortlisted in Teaching Awards provide students Models over Factorised Joins’ the 2016 Oxford University Student with direct opportunities to recognise bridges databases and machine Union (OUSU) Teaching Awards. excellence in teaching. Each year learning. His work led to a Software Engineering lecturers award winners are selected in six publication in ACM SIGMOD Professor Andrew Markham, Dr categories by a panel of students, 2016, and has been previously Jeffrey Ritter and Dr Stephan and the winners are then referred to awarded the 2015 Hoare Prize Murer have all been nominated as examples to promote excellent for best MSc project in Computer in the ‘Most Acclaimed Lecturer’ teaching around Oxford. Science at Oxford. Every two years, IEEE Intelligent Yelp Dataset This paper proposes a novel Systems acknowledges and approach to using group-level celebrates 10 young stars in Challenge round labels (eg the category of an entire the field of AI as ‘AI’s 10 to five win! review) to learn instance-level Watch.’ This year Gerardo I. classification (eg the category Simari, a former Researcher in of specific sentences inside this the department, and Haris Aziz, Professor Nando De Freitas and review). The authors designed a new who did an MSc in Mathematics DPhil student Misha Denil were part objective (cost) function for training and Foundations of Computer of the winning team in the fifth round a model which uses features from a Science at the University of of the Yelp Dataset Challenge for deep learning convolutional neural Oxford were both featured. their paper ‘From Group to Individual network. This trained neural network Gerardo is now an Assistant Labels Using Deep Features’. can, in turn, be used as a classifier Professor at Universidad predicting which category a specific Nacional del Sur in Bahía Blanca The Yelp dataset includes instance belongs to. Their innovative and a researcher at CONICET, information about local businesses in research has broad implications for Argentina. Haris has gone on ten cities across four countries. The a variety of fields, and not just text to be a Senior Researcher at challenge awards $5,000 to work classification. Data61 and a Conjoint Senior that uses this data in an innovative Lecturer at the University of New way and breaks new ground in A PDF of the winning paper can be South Wales, Australia. research. found at: http://goo.gl/n2Mzxz

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 5 Developing new tools for acoustic ecology: in the search for the New Forest cicada

Acoustic ecology is a rapidly growing area that seeks to understand an environment, and the dynamics of animal populations living within it, through ambient sound and the sounds that individual animals make. Oxford’s Professor Alex Rogers discusses his research.

A typical ecoacoustics survey The high cost of commercial maximise the battery life of the involves deploying a small number acoustic recorders is not particularly device itself, we use acoustic of battery-powered recorders that surprising given that these are recognition algorithms on the device make continuous sound recordings custom devices serving a relatively to decide in real time whether a over a period of weeks to months. small market. However, in many particular sound is interesting and These recordings are then analysed areas of science, particularly in should be recorded. by ecologists to identify processes laboratory work, high-end one- operating in the environment (both size-fits-all commercial devices To evaluate this prototype, we are natural and anthropogenic), the are rapidly being superseded by deploying it in May in Hampshire to animal species present, and their locally developed solutions tailored search for the New Forest cicada; behaviour. To date, these surveys to address specific settings. This is the UK’s only native cicada species. have been expensive and limited in driven by the emergence of low- The New Forest cicada has been scale since each recording device cost development boards, such as known in the UK since 1812 but costs close to £1,000 and the Arduino and Raspberry Pi, the online has not been officially sighted for manual analysis of the resulting community sharing designs, and over 20 years. Unlike more common recordings is particularly labour online manufacturers offering PCB species of cicada encountered in intensive. assembly, 3D printing and laser- southern Europe, whose song is very cutting services, which have made familiar, the New Forest cicada sings low-volume manufacturing of custom continuously for up to thirty seconds devices more accessible than ever at a frequency around 15kHz. This before. is close to the limit of most adults’ hearing range, although children can In the Soundtrap project (www. typically hear it clearly from up to soundtrap.io) we are exploiting 100 meters away. The reason for its these trends to develop an open- disappearance from a small number source low-cost acoustic recorder of well-studied breeding sites within for environmental monitoring the forest is unknown; possibly due applications. Our prototype logger to climate or land use changes. combines a capable low-power However, there remains a good 32-bit microcontroller with a chance that colonies still survive sensitive MEMS microphone from in as-yet-unknown sites within the a smartphone and an SD-card to forest, and we hope to discover store audio recordings. The total these. cost is less than £20 and the device is capable of recording 18 hours For the previous three years, in of high quality audio, sampled conjunction with the New Forest at 48kHz, using just three AAA National Park Authority, the Forestry batteries for power. To reduce the Commission and BugLife (the time-consuming task of analysing Invertebrate Conservation Trust), the resulting recordings, and to continued on next page

6 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford from previous page algorithm on the device itself, we In addition, while a recorder is may have over 50,000 recordings, a useful first tool for the rangers we have been searching for the each 30 seconds long, to analyse. currently working in the area, a more New Forest cicada using a citizen However, the cloud-based platform developed solution will also need a science smartphone app (www. allows us to run more sophisticated low-power long-range radio capable newforestcicada.info) which is machine learning algorithms, of providing alerts to the rangers in capable of recognising and recording recognising and identifying bird real time. the song of the cicada. However, and insect recordings, as well as after 6,000 survey reports from the confirming any New Forest cicada In addition, we are working with forest, there is still no sign of the recordings. Dr Davide Zilli and Professor cicada. This might be because the Steve Roberts of the University of cicada is very particular about when In addition, to the cicada Oxford, and Professor Kathy Willis it sings, favouring warm sunny days deployment, we are working of the Royal Botanic Gardens, with little wind between May and with a number of other groups Kew to explore low-cost devices June, and our citizen scientists just to understand the use cases and for mosquito species recognition haven’t been there when they are resulting operational requirements in a project funded by a Google singing. We hope that deploying of future devices. For example, we Impact Award. The project aims to 50-100 fixed recorders at the most are working with Professor Patrick recognise species of mosquito that promising sites, particularly less Doncaster and Dr Jake Snaddon act as disease carriers by their wing accessible, sunny, south facing at the University of Southampton beat frequency, something that has clearings in the forest, may be more to develop monitoring tools for proved to be possible using direct successful. areas of protected tropical forests laser measurements of a mosquito in Belize. These areas serve wing, but has yet to be deployed at The recorders to be deployed this as corridors for native jaguar scale using acoustic detectors. spring use the Goertzel filter (an populations but are threatened by efficient form of discrete Fourier the illegal logging of timber and Our aim in all these projects is to transform) to detect the main the the illegal hunting of wild boar; develop an open platform consisting frequency components of the both of which disrupt the jaguar’s of both hardware and software cicada’s song, and a simplified environment and its food chain. components, that can rapidly be hidden Markov model to recognise To this end, we are developing re-purposed to any new application, the song’s characteristic time- acoustic recognition algorithms providing a domain structure. The recorders, by that can reliably detect the sound cheaper and waking up every five seconds and of chainsaws and gun shots in more capable listening for 200ms, can operate the forest. While chainsaws are solution for over eight weeks, continuously somewhat similar to the cicada than current monitoring an area and making detection problem in that they commercial recordings of any cicadas heard. The are long duration sounds which devices. resulting recordings will be retrieved offer many opportunities for after the deployment period and detection, gunshots present a uploaded to a website, providing more challenging problem requiring the ecologist and entomologists at ultra-low power devices that can BugLife with tools to view, sort and continuously listen and analyse assess them. Depending on the false sound recordings, looking for the positive rate of the cicada detection very short signature of a gunshot.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 7 Beyond systems biology Can we model entire social-ecological systems?

The development of a systems of its biodiversity, Moorea is probably of dimension greater than 1mm (this approach to biological and biomedical the best-known tropical ecosystem in includes genetic sequences, museum research that is both quantitative and the world, hosting France’s Center of specimens, and digital photographs). predictive is one of the key research Excellence for Coral Reef Research Although further data collection on goals for the Computational Biology and the US National Science the impact of human society and at Group (CBG). Whilst systems biology Foundation’s only coral reef long- the microbial level is still needed, the aims to revolutionise biomedicine term ecological research site. Moorea existing physical and biotic databases, and thus enhance human wellbeing, is therefore a natural laboratory combined with a wealth of data on the human wellbeing is also inextricably spanning marine and terrestrial resilience of Moorea’s ecosystems, linked to the health of societies as environments (to 1,207m) that is means that Moorea provides an a whole and the natural and built constrained enough to be tractable, ideal starting point to develop a environments within which those but sufficiently large (132 sq. km) to systems approach to ecology and societies live. How far an integrative contain all the elements of a complex sustainability. systems modelling approach can socio-ecosystem, including a sizable be applied to such social-ecological human population (approx 17,000). The Consortium’s initial goal, and systems is the focus of the work of one in which Oxford Computer the IDEA (Island Digital Ecosystem From an ecological perspective, Science researchers are playing a Avatars) Consortium, with the Oxford coral reefs are the rainforests of the leading role, is to bring together the Computer Science input into the sea and millions of people depend existing disparate data sources within consortium being provided by CBG on them for food security and other a coherent data management and researchers Dr Greg McInerney ecosystem services, such as storm computational science infrastructure. (recently appointed to a lectureship protection and sources of medicines. This will then allow this great wealth at Warwick) and Professor David Tropical island reefs, however, are of data to be analysed through data- Gavaghan. under threat and represent ‘canaries intensive techniques, and predictive in the mine’ due to their sensitivity computational models to be built Simulations of (potentially entire) to global change. Understanding that consider how human activities social-ecological systems are interactions between island social are interacting with ecosystem a daunting task, and so we are systems and environments, and processes, ultimately focusing on starting our work by looking at of differential cultural responses to how whole communities of organisms the most scientifically tractable ecosystem change, informs policies interact with human activities and locations for these studies – for sustainability and resilience. the physical environment at the islands – commencing with one of scale of landscapes or catchments. the most intensively studied and The presence of long-term research The resulting improvements in our researched: Moorea. Moorea is a centres on Moorea means that the understanding will then inform our small, volcanic, oceanic island about consortium has available to it what is assessment of the impact of both 15 km northwest of Tahiti in French probably the world’s most complete natural and human-induced change, Polynesia. It has significant scientific single-site ecological data set. This and allow us to support policy- capacity through its two international is further enhanced by the data makers in determining management research stations (CNRS-EPHE collected by the Moorea Biocode and conservation actions aimed at CRIOBE since 1971 and UC Berkeley Project, which has characterised preserving ecosystem sustainability. Gump Station since 1985). In terms every species on the whole island continued on next page

8 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford from previous page all aspects of the system. This services, and society will co-evolve combined resource, which we have over the next several decades on The Moorea Avatar termed the ‘Moorea Commons’ (see Moorea depending upon what figure), will provide a hub allowing actions are taken. The starting point The consortium is beginning to exploration and sharing of existing is the physical, biological, and social address these questions by building knowledge, nurturing collaborations state of the island system today, and a place-based data-science across disciplines. It will also be understanding how it has reached infrastructure and computational a repository for the new outputs this point. This will then form the platform through which the research – data, models, model outputs, basis for understanding the future of community can gain access to research notes and publications. Moorea under alternative scenarios the wealth of data available. We New research will exist within the of environmental change and human have termed this infrastructure the context of the whole research effort activity, including conservation ‘Moorea Avatar’ since it provides a and be immediately related to efforts. These computational three-dimensional visualization of previous and on-going efforts. models could then be used to Moorea which extends the Google support scenario-based planning, Earth-style representation by The longer term goals are to use helping local communities to adapt including the dimension of time, and these resources to build predictive to environmental change and also enables researchers to zoom computational models to understand maximizing ecological resilience. into a location, access data, and run how biodiversity, ecosystem (predictive) simulations based on that data. The Avatar is therefore a ‘model of place’ for Moorea. Since physical structure is at the centre of our understanding of place, this detailed, three-dimensional physical model of the island and the surrounding underwater environment will be at the centre of the model, serving to ground users and provide a natural context for their exploration.

With this 3D Moorea Map in place we can begin to build a virtual environment to provide the infrastructure for the IDEA project as a whole. This map will give the user a sense of ‘place’ at the outset that is populated with existing resources – research publications, data sets and models relevant for understanding

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 9 research groups are provided with Building our Future suitable environments in which to work, but our pace of growth and our ambitious plans for the future The Department of Computer We have acquired teaching space are best served in a consolidated Science has changed dramatically in the Department of Engineering space with room to expand. from the days when it had 20 Science, the Human Centred academics and a handful of Computing Group based on St Giles, This vision for the future would research students housed in and the Robert Hooke Building in incorporate a new state-of-the- Victorian houses in Oxford. Parks Road. In the past three years, art dedicated Computer Science Over the last five years, we have we have refurbished this building Building within Oxford. experienced unprecedented for additional teaching space, room levels of expansion and now have for an extensive team in innovative We will be pursuing this goal in nearly 1,000 people associated security research, a Cyber Security conjunction with the University with the department as staff, full Doctoral Training Centre, and space and hope to launch a formal and part-time students and long- for researchers in machine learning. campaign later this year. If you term visitors. would like to donate to help In 2016 we will open a further secure the future of innovation While this growth is certainly bespoke space in the Robert and growth in Computer Science positive and necessary in Hooke Building for our newly at Oxford, please visit this web becoming the world-class centre formed Sensor Network Group, page: www.alumniweb.ox.ac.uk/ that we are, the department has including room for academics, cs/make-a-donation already outgrown our original researchers and students as well as If you would like more information building in Parks Road, our experimental and seminar space. on the plans for the Building the more recent e-science building Future of Computer Science at extension in Keble Road, and The department has invested Oxford, please contact: Megan has now taken on three further substantially in converting these Schaible at megan.schaible@ locations. additional spaces to ensure that our cs.ox.ac.uk

so relaxed, friendly and effortless to Oxford partners Bebras the visitors.’ in kid’s computational thinking challenge Bebras is kindly supported by the Raspberry Pi Foundation, ARM The Bebras Computational Thinking Professors Peter Millican and Mike Holdings PLC and Computing at Challenge is primarily an online Wooldridge, a college tour led by School. The winners’ hall of fame is event, now organised in over 30 current Oxford undergraduates, and available at: www.beaver-comp.org. countries, that is designed to a lunch in Hertford College. While uk/hall-of-fame.html introduce school students as young the students tackled some more in- as eight to computational problem depth Computer Science sessions, The Bebras competition days were solving. It reveals how computational the parents were treated to a magic a new addition to the department’s thinking can be applied to everyday show by current Computer Science outreach provision for 2016. Other situations in a way that’s fun. and Philosophy undergraduate regular events to introduce young Paavan Buddhdev. people to Computer Science include Over a weekend in January, the the annual ‘Women in Computer Department of Computer Science Bebras Coordinator Chris Roffey Science Taster Day’, ‘Further Maths and Hertford College teamed up with commented, ‘The second round – What Next?’ and the ‘Computing Bebras UK, inviting just over 100 of celebration hosted by Hertford at School Conference’ in association the top-scoring students from the College and the Computer with BCS. Information on upcoming first online round, to attend a second Science Department at Oxford events for young people and schools round of competition in Oxford. The was a fantastic event, balancing is available at: http://goo.gl/qEWkjc invitees in the top four age groups a celebration of the students’ came from schools as far away excellence in computational thinking as Aberdeen, Dundee, Exeter and with a friendly enjoyable day for all Cambridge. the competitors and their guests.

In addition to the competition final, The success of the two days was in the students and their parents no small part down to the excellent enjoyed computing lectures from organisation that was so thorough Oxford academics including behind the scenes and yet seemed © Khalid Risvi

10 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Alumni Profile Dr Eoin Hyde (University 2008) & Dr Lorenz Berger (Keble 2010)

Eoin and Lorenz joined the University of Oxford from University College Cork and Bristol University, respectively, with technical backgrounds based in mathematics, applied mathematics, and Computer Science. They are co-founders of a medical technology startup company, Innersight Labs, based in London.

What did you do in Oxford? How has the course you studied here helped you We both studied on the same programme here at in your current profession? Oxford, namely the Life Science Interface Doctoral We apply the technical skills that we gained from our Training Centre (EH:2008-2013; LB:2010-2015). DPhils on a daily basis. The course also gave us the confidence to get done whatever needs to be done What attracted you to studying Computer – in essence a DPhil is the ultimate problem-solving Science as a subject? badge of honour. It’s that confidence, backed by Probably keeping in common with most Computer ability that leads to the necessary bold decisions one Science people, we are driven by the goal of applying must take when starting a brand new company from mathematics in the real world to solve today’s the ground up. pressing problems. This is particularly true within the field of mathematical biology – using efficient What advice would you give to current students software and high performance computing to unlock on applying their knowledge in the workplace, the secrets of complex biological phenomena. We when they leave university? are fortunate enough to have worked on some really In our opinion it’s important to pick a challenging fascinating projects during our time at the Department project that really requires technical knowledge. of Computer Science, such as dynamic poroelastic Not only knowledge already accrued, but crucially lung and myocardial perfusion modelling. also knowledge yet to be gained. One should be constantly seeking ways to upskill in life as, after all, a What aspects of the course you studied here did rolling stone gathers no moss! you particularly enjoy? We both really enjoyed our time at Oxford. It goes If we went back in time and asked, what would without saying that completing a DPhil is a tough the student ‘you’ have thought about what but rewarding challenge. The support network that you are currently doing – would you have been one finds at Oxford is really second to none and a surprised, proud, amazed? collegiate system which provide a ready-made and Definitely proud. People tend towards the known path diverse group of friends. The department itself with for understandable reasons. The UK, and the EU to a its world-leading supervisors and energising students wider extent, is quite risk averse culturally, particularly also made the course enjoyable for us as students. relative to the US. Rather than fixating on a fear of We were both keen footballers as well, sometimes as failure or opportunity costs, society could support team-mates and sometimes as rivals! people with various backgrounds to come together to start finding solutions to whatever is currently lacking. What did you do when you left Oxford? As students, we always talked about starting our own Eoin went on to take up a position as a Research company, now we’re simply doing it. Associate at King’s College London working on a pacemaker device design and cardiac electrophysiology basic science research. When Lorenz finished his DPhil he worked at a startup in Silicon Valley. Upon his return to the UK, we met in London and discussed various ideas and technology gaps that we had encountered, eventually deciding that we could best use our skills by providing badly- needed virtual surgical planning tools for surgeons, hence Innersight Labs was born. We are particularly focused on helping surgeons who practice minimally invasive (keyhole) surgery, due to the extra challenges involved in operating in reduced space and without direct sight or touch.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 11 Preventing lunchtime attacks: Fighting insider threats with eye movement biometrics

Simon Eberz, and Professors Kasper Rasmussen and Ivan Martinovic have been researching an interesting new application for eye-movement recognition.

Passwords are the most widely physiological characteristics we use both the static diameter, used mechanism to authenticate (such as fingerprints) or distinctive which largely results from eye shape users, both on local systems (eg behaviour (such as typing patterns). and size, and the degree to which workstations or laptops), and on Behavioural biometrics in particular it changes over the course of a the web. Despite their widespread offer the advantage of not requiring fixation. use, they suffer from a number any significant conscious effort of problems, most notably bad on the user’s part, thereby making Eye movements are a response to a memorability, frequent re-use them particularly suitable for visual stimulus. As different stimuli across different accounts, and users continuous authentication. might lead to different responses choosing weak, easily predictable (a property that is used in medical passwords. Efforts to motivate users Inspired by the wide-spread use of diagnosis), the experimental design to choose stronger passwords have eye movements for market research must account for a number of been largely fruitless, as evidenced and medical diagnosis, researchers different everyday tasks. In our by a number of recent password have investigated the feasibility of experiment, we investigate web database leaks. For example, the exploiting their distinctiveness to browsing, reading, typing, and 2013 Adobe password database leak provide continuous authentication. watching videos. Thirty participants revealed ‘123456’ to be the most Such a system will detect when from various age groups and both commonly chosen password. another user starts using a genders performed our experiment workstation or web service by while their eye movements were In addition, an often overlooked observing a sudden change in recorded. In order to be as property of passwords is that they eye movement patterns. Since unobtrusive as possible, we used can be easily shared with others. eyetracking is becoming more an optical, video-based eyetracker. While this may seem convenient commonplace in different types The tracking works by projecting an at times, it poses a major security of consumer hardware (such as infrared pattern and capturing the threat in the context of insider smartphones, gaming consoles, reflection of the cornea. threats. Insiders are in a particularly and virtual reality headsets), it is advantageous position when it believed that eye movements are Our initial results are very promising comes to acquiring user login an excellent candidate biometric to and suggest that eye movements credentials, for example through provide additional security at little can support reliable continuous shoulder-surfing, persuasion or extra cost. authentication, even over a two-week coercion (and many other social period. We achieve equal error rates engineering techniques). In the Harvesting insights from between 0.04% for web browsing, same context, so-called lunchtime neuroscientific research, we and 4.9% for watching a video, attacks also constitute a threat. In a designed a set of 20 biometric while imposters are detected in an lunchtime attack, the attacker uses features. These capture the matter of seconds. In the future, we an already unlocked workstation distinctiveness of different short- plan to investigate whether these while the legitimate user is away. term eye movements, specifically error rates can be further decreased This attack exploits the fact that fixations, saccades, and through a multimodal approach passwords only provide login-time microsaccades. These biometric (ie combining different biometrics authentication, but can not provide features identify differences in eye into a single system), and how the continuous authentication. movement speed and acceleration biometric holds up under a number (reflecting the properties of of active attacks. In addition, we Biometrics have become a popular microsaccades), spatial dispersion will investigate if our approach can approach seeking to remedy of gaze points (measuring the be applied to exciting upcoming many of these issues. Biometric steadiness of a person’s gaze), and devices, such as VR headsets and authentication is based on either the pupil diameter. For the latter, Google Glass.

12 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Oxford – Singapore Global Cyber Security Capacity Centre: link-up for trusted Focuses on Agrees new computing and emerging partnership in economies Australia verification The Global Cyber Security The GCSCC has recently signed A new collaboration with the Capacity Centre (GCSCC) is a a new agreement with the State National University of Singapore, leading international centre for Government of Victoria, Australia led in Oxford by Professor Andrew research into effective cyber which paves the way for the Martin, will explore applications security, promoting an increase centre to create its first regional of a trustworthy remote entity in the scale, pace, quality and partnership. Over the next two (TRE) and formal verification of impact of cyber security capacity- years the GCSCC aims to create its operation. The idea of the building around the world. Its key a new network of regional centres TRE was developed in the recent aim is to develop a framework to worldwide to more effectively Oxford DPhil thesis of Dr Andrew understand cyber security capacity disseminate its innovative Paverd using trusted computing through creation of an innovative approach to cyber security technologies to build a network new capacity maturity model capacity-building on a global proxy. This device can undertake (CMM). scale. privacy-sensitive operations, using the guarantees of modern hardware In 2015 the centre began applying The Australian partnership to provide evidence to all parties this research with a particular focus will be based at the Oceania that the calculations have not on emerging economies. The CMM Cyber Security Centre (OCSC), been subverted. The first example was initially piloted in partnership a new facility in Melbourne scenario is the smart power grid. with the Organization of American bringing together eight Victorian The TRE allows usage data from States (OAS) in Jamaica and universities, the Melbourne-based several households to be aggregated Columbia, before the approach Defence Science Institute and (to preserve privacy but give an was rolled out across Latin America major private sector partners to be accurate instantaneous load figure and the Caribbean region by the a key focus point for cyber security for the neighbourhood), usage data OAS in partnership with the Inter- capacity-building. from a single user to be aggregated American Development Bank over time (so an accurate bill is (IDB). In 2015-16 these CMM The GCSCC will work closely with produced, without disclosing the reviews were undertaken in a the OCSC, enabling nations in the detailed usage pattern), and to allow further nine countries: Kosovo, region to better understand what signals (such as for load-shedding) Bhutan, Montenegro, Fiji and good cyber security looks like in to be sent from the supplier back Armenia with the World Bank, order to focus investment and to the individual households, even Uganda with the Commonwealth national cyber security strategies. though these are not identified to the Telecommunications Organisation GCSCC Director Professor Sadie supplier directly. (CTO), Senegal with the Creese said, ‘We are delighted Government of the Netherlands to be part of this exciting new The TRE is designed to have the and in Indonesia and the UK at the partnership. Our aim is for our smallest possible trusted computing invitation of the nations themselves. work to be used internationally as base so as to be amenable to a common framework for effective verification both of the protocols These reviews enable cyber security, and working with used and the code implementing governments to understand cyber key partners worldwide such as the system. This project will security capacity in-country before the State Government of Victoria is concentrate on approaches to developing new strategies, for the only effective way to tackle this that verification task, using tools nations and donors to prioritise truly global issue.’ developed in Oxford and by the investments, and for all partners group of Professor Jin Song Dong at to address cyber security capacity the National University of Singapore. comprehensively and holistically. The project will run for three years, The GCSCC will be building on and will employ staff in both Oxford this work in developing its new and Singapore. It is funded under regional approach over the next an initiative established jointly few years. between the UK’s Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) and the Singapore National Research Foundation.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 13 Spin-out news

Members of the department continue to be involved in spin-out activity, with current academics as well as alumni linked to a number of exciting companies which originated at Oxford. Mi6Sense, TheySay, OxCept, Semmle and Wrapidity are just a few of our spin-out successes, ensuring that our department continues Accelerating the impact to make a real-world impact by encouraging commercialisation of Computer Science research across a wide range of research areas. In the past few months OxCEPT was a Finalist of The Made available by the UK’s Content selection poses a significant ‘Anti-Fraud Security Strategy main Research Councils, Impact challenge because the selected of the Year’ title at the FSTech Acceleration Account awards (IAAs) content must satisfy both the users Awards 2016, members of the are designed to ‘do what they say on preferences and the broadcasters’ department were involved with the tin’ – ie to speed up or amplify policies regarding what content can DeepMind’s AlphaGo success the impact arising from research that be shown to whom and at what (read more about that on page 26) is already funded. In many cases, times of day, etc. Existing solutions and sentiment analysis spin-out it is recognised that there will be a are based on ad hoc rule systems TheySay was referred to in the long lead time between research of limited expressivity, and the media during the Corbyn Labour ‘discovery’ and impact in the real project aims to explore whether Leadership win. world. In the case of the Engineering semantic technology and automated and Physical Sciences Research reasoning can provide a more Isis Innovation has linked up with Council (EPSRC), Oxford University principled and flexible solution to the department to provide a ‘hot- is one of 31 UK institutions to selection. desk’. The hot-desk is staffed have been awarded an Impact by Daniel Stachowiak enabling Acceleration Account (IAA) award. In the case of this award, the members of the department to The grant is available to support secondment partner is Imagine gain easy access to advice on the activities which will reduce this lead Communications, a leading commercialisation of research. time and assist in accelerating the broadcasting technology provider Isis Innovation is the research and impact from past, current or future who had been approached by Isis technology commercialisation EPSRC-funded research. Grants Innovation seeking to partner with company of the University fund either the development of the researchers working in this field. of Oxford. Isis is the highest technology itself to the point where Having made the link between Boris university patent filer in the UK it is suitable for venture capital, or and Imagine, the spinout company and is ranked 1st in the UK for the secondment of people inward Covatic evolved. Covatic is now university spin-outs. (eg industrial partners into Oxford) or developing a product which will outward (eg Oxford researchers into enable established broadcasters industry). such as the BBC to retain viewers News in brief and maintain their brand given the Under the IAA secondment scheme, shift to view-on-demand (VOD) NVIDIA, a world-leading Professors Boris Motik and Bernardo services by recognising the benefits specialist in visual computing, Cuenca Grau were recently opened up by using broader, up- has recognised the department awarded IAA funding to support a front data, linked data and semantic by naming two academics as postdoctoral researcher, Robert Piro reasoning. ‘AI Pioneers’ and giving us our working on secondment on a project very own DGX-1 supercomputer. applying semantic technology to Boris says that in addition to the Professors Phil Blunsom and the broadcast industry. This award spin-out opportunities, the IAA Nando de Freitas have been named builds on technology developed secondment has provided his by the company as ‘Pioneers in within two distinct EPSRC-funded research team with useful hands-on Artificial Intelligence Research’. projects – RDFox and SemFacet. experience of what the technology NVIDIA has chosen AI pioneers The ultimate goal of the project they are developing is capable of, at ten different universities to is to develop TV channels which which in turn will help to inform the receive their own ground-breaking adapt to viewers’ preferences. direction of their ongoing research. supercomputer, the DGX-1.

14 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Semantic technologies in health care

Modern health care crucially builds on data and its effective analysis, particularly in the scope of quality control. In the US, Health Maintenance Organisations (HMOs) are required to regularly report quality measures specified by the National Committee for Quality Assurance (NCQA); such reporting is a mandatory condition for participation in government funded health care schemes, which cover more than 40 Million patients across the US. Rules were evaluated using RDFox, an in-memory RDF triple store and parallel Datalog reasoner. RDFox Traditionally, the computation of these quality measures has been developed in the KRR group, and scales involves a series of SAS programs or SQL queries. Such exceptionally well on modern multi-core processor solutions tend to be large and involved so validating architecture. Running on a relatively modest commodity and maintaining them is difficult, requiring a high level of server, RDFox computed the quality measures over IT-skills. In contrast, semantic technologies provide tool the medical history of an entire KP regional branch support for modelling domain knowledge with high-level with more than 465,000 patients in less than 30 languages in so called ontologies, which are declarative, minutes. KP’s data analyst in charge acknowledged succinct and much closer to natural language. this to be fast in comparison to the currently used NCQA approved vendor product. they were similarly The Knowledge Representation and Reasoning (KRR) impressed with the small number of iteration cycles group in the Department of Computer Science, together needed to reconcile discrepancies between the results with the US HMO Kaiser Permanente (KP), conducted a delivered by our solution and the vendor product. project to demonstrate the advantages of using semantic Due to the intelligibility of rules, we started with a technologies in health care. low number of discrepancies from the outset, and using so called explanations provided by RDFox we In the project we computed a particularly difficult set quickly identified modelling errors and even discovered of NCQA quality measures, namely HEDIS Diabetic problems with the vendor’s solution. Care, which we encoded in a Datalog ontology. The ontology consists of rules, which are intuitive if-then With this project we have successfully demonstrated statements, and are in close correspondence with the the advantages of semantic technologies over text of the HEDIS specification. Instead of 3,000 lines traditional solutions in the context of health care. of low-level SQL code, we ended up with 174 Datalog Further projects with KP are envisaged, and KP is now rules, each of which is easily legible and easily checked considering the deployment of semantic technologies, for correctness. and in particular RDFox.

5G-ENSURE The 5G-ENSURE project has design. A 5G testbed will be used received funding of just over €7.5m for validating operational capacity from Horizon 2020, the largest in response to security and to make 5G ever EU Research and Innovation privacy issues. funding programme. For Europe networks and to truly benefit from 5G services The project involves Professor across sectors key to its economy, of Systems Security, Andrew systems secure it is essential that trust and privacy Martin and two new Research are design priorities. 5G-ENSURE Assistants Piers O’Hanlon and follows an innovative approach Ravi Borgaonkar. and resilient where 5G’s inherent security needs are understood and addressed by Read more: www.5gensure.eu

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 15 ERC Strachey anniversary Consolidator Grant for Professor Christopher Strachey side that he most indelibly left (1916–1975) was a pioneering his mark – notably by creating, Scalable Data Computer Scientist and the founder with Professor Dana Scott, the of the Programming Research denotational (or as he called Management Group, now part of the Department it, ‘mathematical’) approach of Computer Science at Oxford to defining the semantics of Professor Dan Olteanu has University. We will be marking programming languages. Strachey been awarded a €1.98 million the occasion of 100 years since also spent time writing complex grant from the European Christopher’s birth on Saturday 19 programs and puzzles for various Research Council to conduct November 2016, three days after computers, such as a draughts- a five-year research project on his birthday, with a symposium of playing program for the Pilot ‘Foundations of Factorised Data invited speakers. The morning will ACE in 1951. During his career Management Systems’. look back at Christopher’s life and he developed some fundamental works from a historical and technical concepts of machine-independent The project has two main perspective, and the afternoon will operating systems, including an objectives: to investigate concern the future of Strachey- early suggestion for time-sharing, fundamental challenges in inspired theoretical Computer and was a prime mover in the scalable data management at Science at Oxford University. There influential CPL programming the confluence of compression, will also be a display of related language. Christopher came from distribution, and approximation archival material at the Bodleian a notable family of intellectuals and for both data and computation; Library on Friday 18 November. artists, perhaps most famous for his and to build a practical large- uncle, Lytton Strachey, a writer and scale data management system Although Christopher was keenly member of the Bloomsbury Group. that incorporates the techniques interested in the practical aspects and algorithmic insights from of computing it is on the theoretical Book here https://goo.gl/6wcLpK the first objective.

A key scalability ingredient News in brief put forward in this project is a wrote about how data can be used lossless compression technique The Conversation is a website negatively to reinforce discrimination. called factorisation. This is collaboration between editors and Read these articles and more at conceptually the same as academics to provide informed www.theconversation.com factoring numbers and algebraic news analysis and commentary expressions, which is taught in that’s free to read and republish. The Careers in Computing fair was primary school and dates back It is an innovative way of sharing held in association with the Oxford to Euclid. For example, given research on a ‘creative commons’ Careers Service in November. two sets, consider counting basis. Recently two of our It attracted exhibitors ranging the number of possible pairs academics have contributed articles. from small local companies, to consisting of one element from Professor Jeremy Gibbons wrote multinationals including American each set. Instead of explicitly an article on what happens when Express, Google, and IBM. creating and counting the computer modelling goes wrong, Interested in exhibiting this year? pairs, one can multiply the and Researcher Reuben Binns Contact [email protected] sizes of the two sets. Such simple ideas can be applied to many computational tasks underlying query answering and the construction of prediction and classification models. By avoiding redundancy in data and computation, factorisation becomes prerequisite to optimality of data processing algorithms. In practice, factorisation can speed up data processing by orders of magnitude.

16 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Student Profile Samuel Littley, (Computer Science, Keble) Many Oxford students choose to undertake internships during their undergraduate degrees. We talk to fourth-year student Samuel Littley about his experiences, since joining us from a grammar school in Lancashire.

Tell us about your internships? How did you hear about the placements? During my time at Oxford I’ve had the opportunity to do For Fatsoma, I had previously done a week’s work three separate internships. experience with the company, having known one of their software engineers through Scouting. My first internship was with Fatsoma, an events ticketing company based in Manchester. I worked For Google, it was a company I was considering on WordPress based promotional sites for clubs and applying to anyway, having looked up internship venues, building the sites from designs and also on opportunities on their website. I was then fortunate managing the WordPress system. I also wrote custom enough to know a graduate who had recently started plugins in PHP for interaction between the sites and at Google and was able to recommend me before Fatsoma’s own ticketing system, Facebook, Twitter and going into the normal recruitment process other social networks. For this internship I worked from home mostly, using Skype or email to communicate Semmle was a surprising experience of the company and Git to manage code. This also allowed me to spend reaching out to me (somewhat unexpectedly) inviting three weeks at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, working me to join them for dinner! After spending the evening for Fatsoma during the day, running lights and sound for talking about the company (and plenty of other things) a show in the evening. I was invited to an interview a few days later.

My second internship was with Google in London. I How have the internships helped you? worked with the Site Reliability Engineering (SRE) team This has been a fantastic way to get industry for Android and Play Services, completing a Python experience and has really helped me decide where project to assist with planning and managing capacity I want to work once I graduate. I was originally for the various services the SRE team maintained. The concerned as to whether I wanted to work for a Google offices were right in the heart of London by large multinational corporation, such as Google, or Victoria station – I spent three months living in Vauxhall somewhere smaller where I’d be able to make more with a 30 minute walk into work. of an impact. The experience both at Google and at Semmle reassured me that there wasn’t that much My final internship was with Semmle in Oxford, difference between big and small. a company started by one of the Department of Computer Science lecturers in 2006, who do The other huge benefit of doing internships has been analysis of source code to improve code quality and the sheer improvement in the quality of my work. correctness. I worked on a Python-based plugin for Writing code and doing projects at university and in Sublime Text to display analysis results in the text my free time is quite different to working in a business editor and also a Java-based backend for a system with other people. I learnt a huge amount about how allowing users to interact with the analysis in a web to write good maintainable code and how to work browser. It was great living in Oxford all summer with a alongside my colleagues. 10 minute cycle ride to the office each day. What are your plans for when you finish your degree? News in brief I decided at the start of my 4th year that I would like to work for Google again – I spoke to my recruiter at A Google PhD Fellowship 2016 has been awarded to Google who arranged a few more interviews for me. Oxford Computer Science student Marcelo Sousa. Fortunately I had the advantage of being able to refer In 2009 Google created its annual PhD Fellowship to my work done during my internship and to the programme to support outstanding Computer Science interviews I did for my internship. After a few agonising students across the globe. This year 39 students weeks of waiting I finally heard that Google had a from North America, Europe and the Middle East job for me, in the same role as my internship. I’ll be were recognised. Oxford’s Marcelo Sousa was the starting with them in July in Dublin – a huge, but very only person awarded a Fellowship in the category of exciting step! Programming Languages and Software Engineering.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 17 Research in Conversation: Machine learning and linguistics

Professor Stephen Pulman was recently interviewed by Georgina Brooke as part of the Oxford University ‘Research in Conversation’ series. The interview is reproduced in an abbreviated version below.

Stephen, what problems are you tall even by the standards of US which you can use to guide the working on right now? presidents – that would be really understanding of the text. What is One of the problems that’s really exciting. really difficult are the areas where interested me from the start and there isn’t that predefined logical that I’m working on at the moment Computers are really good at some structure, and where you and I is the problem of inference and things and really bad at others. would use our common sense and natural language. What they’re really good at is experience of the world to fill in the putting together bits of information gaps. Computers are really bad at I’ll give you an example: if you read from different sources such as that and we just don’t know how we somewhere that ‘John’s taller than numerical information or stuff from do that. Bill,’ you can conclude that Bill is databases. What I’d really like to shorter than John. But you can’t be able to do is to have a machine Some simple examples would actually conclude that either of them that could go off and read normal be things like resolving linguistic is tall. If I give you an extra bit of human text, understand it, and ambiguities. For example: ‘The information. If I say, ‘Bill is tall, and then be able to explain things porters refused admission to the John is taller than Bill,’ then I can about what it had read to me when students, because they advocated conclude that John is tall. It follows questioned. It would have to be violence.’ So the question is, who logically from the other statements. able to figure out the basics of what does ‘they’ refer to there? ‘They’ So that inference is an example of it had read without me necessarily would, very likely, be the students. a process where you’ve deduced having understood it. So getting If I change it to ‘The porters something from the grammatical a computer to tell me something I refused admission to the students and semantic structure of language. don’t know would be really exciting. because they feared violence,’ in And not just to tell me, but to be that instance, ‘they’ is much more There’s a separate question of how able to explain it: to teach me. likely to be the porters. And we can I know whether that’s actually true deduce that from the sentence. But in the world. Well, I have some What needs to happen for that that deduction process is – at the idea of what the standards of to be a reality? moment – completely mysterious tallness are for people, which can Lots of things! There’s the basic as we just don’t know how to vary: what’s tall for a basketball ability of machines to understand make a computer simulate it. That player is quite different from what’s English, which is very far from common sense reasoning that tall for you and me – and that’s perfect. We can do it to a certain goes into resolving ambiguities and different from what’s tall for a extent. But to actually have a almost every aspect of language tree or a building. The process of machine go off and read, say, processing is the most challenging trying to write programmes that a biology textbook and then aspect of language understanding. will automate those inferences is understand the content of it really interesting to me, and it also properly – we’re a very long way You’re also a co-founder of has lots of practical applications. away from that. TheySay, could you tell me more If you take Siri, at the moment the about that? way that works is by trying to find What is really difficult are the areas TheySay came out of work done some sentences or some text that where there isn’t that predefined with a DPhil student called Karo contain the answer to your question logical structure, and where you Moilanen, who’s another co- directly – they don’t use much by and I would use our common founder. He came to me because way of inference. It would be much sense and experience of the world. he’d been working in a company more useful if they did! If I were In some ways getting computers on ‘sentiment analysis’, which is to ask: ‘Is President Obama tall?’, to understand language about the process of discovering positive and somewhere or other it could particular technical domains and negative attitudes towards work out that Bill Clinton is tall but (like, say, maths or logic) is things in text. Most people working Obama is taller than Clinton, then less challenging because those in sentiment analysis treat it as a it can tell me that, yes, Obama is domains do have a logical structure machine learning problem: you get

18 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford It’s very interesting, but we’re never trying to predict the outcome. We can’t assume that the people on social media are representative of the voting public (in fact quite the opposite in the case of the Scottish referendum – the independence campaign absolutely dominated social media, despite losing in the actual vote). Do you have to analyse British English differently to American English (‘not bad’ might mean really pretty good in the UK but is more likely to be a more indifferent sentiment in the US)? We do calibrate for whether we’re processing American or British text, a corpus of texts, some of which are you’re interested in (blogs, RSS but the more difficult thing to take labelled positive, some which are feeds, tweets, news sites etc) and into account is the context in which labelled negative, and then you train the system then starts monitoring particular words are being used. the machine to distinguish the two. mentions of that and categorises and So if you’re talking about beer, then Karo was interested in some of the annotates them in various ways such ‘cold’ is good but if you’re talking fine-grained linguistic properties that as by sentiment. about ‘coffee’ or ‘food’, it’s not. Then those approaches got wrong. So a there can be differences depending few examples would be something We also tried to look for other on who’s producing the text. So if I like ‘kill,’ in isolation that has things such as emotion: fear, anger, describe something as ‘sick’, that’s negative connotations. ‘Bacteria,’ surprise. It’s particularly interesting not good. But if my son describes it again negative connotations. ‘Killing to track emotion in political as ‘sick’ – that’s a good thing. bacteria’ that’s positive however discussions. We also try to look ‘failing to kill bacteria’ that’s negative out for sarcasm. We try to detect It’s also very difficult to determine again whilst ‘never failing to kill advertisements because, of course, who the target audience is… the bacteria’ that’s positive again. they’re always positive which is intended positivity or negativity going to skew your results and we can depend on the interests of the It wasn’t just that there were more try to do some ‘topic detection,’ is readers. If I read about oil prices positive words than negative words, this a text about sport, finance, or coming down, I’m probably pleased it was to do with the grammatical politics? We’re also beginning to about that, but if I’m an investor structure and the semantic structure look at demographic properties: or the Government (who want to of the sentence. So that’s interesting gender, age and political orientation get taxes from oil) then that could because you’ve got ‘never’ (which of the text authors. be perceived as negative. We’ve on its own is probably negative), ‘fail’ only got the text, we don’t know (negative), ‘kill’ (negative), ‘bacteria’ What type of content are most about the readers’ preferences or (negative) but put together they of your clients interested in prejudices. become positive. We got interested analysing with your tools? in how that happened. It wasn’t It varies. Sometimes it’s social What would you ultimately like to just that there were more positive media. A lot of our clients are in consider the final legacy of your words than negative words, it was healthcare monitoring so, in these research to be? to do with the grammatical structure cases, there are various websites, It’s so nice to see your students and the semantic structure of the for example the NHS, which people all over the place. I’ve got former sentence. use to record their experience as students in universities here, in a patient. However it can also be London, in the US and in companies. We have two basic products. There’s company reports and press reports. It’s getting to the point where I see an API which you send text to and students of my students! it analyses it and you get the result A lot of the things we’ve done of that analysis back in a report. The recently for fun are around politics. In terms of research, I’d hope people second product, ‘MoodRaker’, is a We were tracking what people were continue to use and develop my dashboard. MoodRaker allows you saying about the parties or people in, work, particularly where I’ve been to choose topics you’re interested for example, the Corbyn campaign, able to combine linguistics with in. For example, ‘Oxford University,’ the Scottish independence computing or logic, and I hope you decide what text sources referendum and the general election. TheySay continues to be successful.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 19 The world outside The department’s students and academics are not only accomplished computer scientists. Below are some other achievements by members of the department. Carlo Maria Scandolo, a DPhil student in the Quantum Group, recently restored some previously © Luana Bulat hard to decipher works written by The 3rd Oxbridge Nicola Matteis (fl. 1650 – 1700), an Italian composer active in the Women in Computer latter half of the 17th century. Carlo Maria transcribed the works into Science Conference Photo © Spurbrick a modern notation playable today, Katherine Fletcher, Coordinator of and the transcripts have now been Oxford and Cambridge female Cyber Security, is a member of the published by Edition Walhall, a computer scientists forged many Oxford-based Brazilian dance and German music publisher. connections at the 3rd annual percussion group Sol Samba. This Oxbridge Women in Computer colourful crew brought some South Martin Lester, a Senior Teaching Science Conference held at the American fizz to the department Assistant, organised the Great University of Cambridge’s Computer BBQ last summer. Scholars Riichi Mahjong Laboratory on 10 March 2016. The Tournament. It took place in the conference is co-organised by Simon Eberz, a DPhil student department on 2 April and attracted Oxford Women in Computer Science studying Software and System 20 players from around Europe. (OxWoCS) and Cambridge women@ Security, won Silver with his team Mahjong is a game with elements CL, and is now an established at the British University Team similar to bridge and poker that is annual event. Championships for Archery. The popular throughout East Asia. Martin BUTC is a national competition used a constraint solver to generate University College London’s that features 32 teams coming as fair a tournament schedule Professor Ann Blandford from all across the United as possible. He has been invited presented the keynote talk entitled Kingdom. The tournament was to help organise the European ‘Empowering people through won by Warwick University. Championship later this year. computing’. It reflected on her education, impressive career and Claire Rugg, a member of the Three teams from the department experience as a female computer finance team, had 10 inches of (two mixed teams, one men’s team) scientist. The keynote was followed hair cut off for charity. She raised took part in the annual Teddy Hall by student presentations, and £419 in sponsorship for The Little Relay running event, which took a poster session, with topics Princess Trust, which provides real place on 9 March. Each leg of the ranging from social networks to hair wigs to boys and girls across race was 3.6mi, beginning and computational linguistics. This the UK who have lost their hair ending at Iffley track. Some of the was followed by our 60 second through cancer treatment. happy team members can be seen lightning talks and undergraduate in the photo [below]. presentations. The academic portion of the conference was closed by Dr Alyson Pitt, from Google.

The conference was free for all, thanks to the generous sponsorship of Google. Starting with only 50 attendees in 2014, the conference has gone from strength to strength with over 150 attendees this year. This allowed the forging of many lasting connections between the two societies, and the creation of new working relationships. The 4th Oxbridge Women in Computer Science Conference will be held at Oxford’s Department of Computer Science in March 2017.

20 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Satisfied students 10% higher than the average score across the University. The Software push up the Engineering programme also scored Barometer over 98% for class size, and subject expertise of academic staff. The latest (2015) Student Barometer results are out, with Computer The overall feedback from the Science students at Oxford department’s doctoral programme reporting a 95% satisfaction rate students was also above the with their university experience – University average. There was a above the University’s overall rating 95% satisfaction rate with the level © Gerald Sharp Photography of 93%. of research activity. The ability to work and study alongside people Student judged Students on the undergraduate from a range of other cultures was programme in Computer Science another particularly positive point, ‘outstanding’ by particularly valued the organization along with the subject expertise of WCIT and smooth running of the course, the staff. the prompt feedback on their work, Second-year student Will Bell has the quality of tutorial teaching, plus The Student Barometer is a yearly been awarded an Outstanding the library and laboratory facilities, questionnaire that is sent out to all Information Technology Student all of which were rated at over 98%. students within a university in mid- award by the Worshipful Company to late autumn, collecting data from of Information Technologists. Will The department’s part-time newly integrated students as well was presented with a certificate graduate programmes – the MScs as from more seasoned students. A and prize at a ceremony held in in Software Engineering and in single authority, i-graduate, collects the historic Apothecaries’ Hall Software & Systems Security – and publishes the results, allowing in London. He is pictured above both scored particularly highly in comparisons across departments, with Master Alderman Sir David the quality of lectures measure: at colleges and even universities. Wootton (left) and Master Educator 98% both courses came in a full John Leighfield CBE (right).

Going back to work have taken a break of at least six condition and simulate how these months for caring responsibilities. mechanisms are reflected on an with a Returning electrocardiogram. Carers’ Award Ana’s research interests include cardiac modelling and simulation Ana says, ‘this award has helped Ana Minchole is a Postdoctoral and signal processing. The aim is me to re-establish my research by Researcher working in the to provide selective biomarkers funding two stays in the Department computational biology research from the electrocardiograph signal of Experimental Cardiology at the team. Ana was selected to receive which will help to predict cardiac University of Amsterdam, which a Returning Carers’ Award from the arrhythmias occurring either due to possesses a large set of clinical and University of Oxford. These awards drugs or pathological conditions. experimental data that will allow me operate as a small grants scheme Cardiac modelling provides a unique to connect the knowledge and data intended to support the return to tool to understand the specific from the ionic level to whole organ research of women and men who ionic mechanisms of each disease and body surface ECG.’

Staff appointments and Synthesis: Algorithms and Computing Science & Tutorial Fellow, and changes Complexity. Magdalen College. Evgeny Sherkhamov – Researcher/ Ravishankar Borgaonkar – Research Since the last edition of Inspired Software Engineer on the Knowledge, Fellow on the 5G Security Architecture Research, there have been some Representation, and Reasoning project. (See p15.) new additions to the department: project. Ruiwen Chen – working on a unified Babis Nikolaou – Research Assistant Menisha Patel – Researcher on the approach to algorithms and lower on the DBONTO project. ZOON project. bounds. Christiana Panayiotou – Marie Curie Ohad Kammar – Researcher in Ruslan Fayzrakhmanov – Research Fellow. Programming Language Theory. Assistant on the VADA project. Diederik Roijers – Research Assistant Philippa Hopcroft – Senior Research Varun Kanade – Research Lecturer in on the TERESA project. (See p28.) Fellow. Machine Learning. Dmitry Chistikov – Research Piotr Skowron – Research Assistant Xin Zhou – Research Assistant on Assistant on Infinite-State Systems on the ACCORD project. the Computational Cardiovascular and Dynamical Systems Verification Rahul Santhanam – Professor of Science project.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 21 Digital wildfires: Showcase workshop

Senior Researcher Helena Webb describes a recent Digital Baroness Beeban Kidron gave a powerful keynote speech arguing for Wildfire project event that promoted debate over how to ‘iRights’ for young people, including the limit the spread of harmful content on social media. right to be forgotten online.

On 12 January 2016 the Digital The workshop welcomed a diverse In a powerful keynote speech Wildfire project co-hosted a range of speakers to share their Baroness Beeban Kidron, founder showcase workshop that brought perspectives on this debate. We of the iRights campaign, argued together researchers with heard from groups such as Kick It that young people should have the stakeholders from policy, the Out – football’s inclusion and equality right to remove their online content police, civil society, commerce organisation – who deal with large in order to allow them to forge their and education. The aim of the amounts of harmful social media own identities, learn from mistakes, workshop was to discuss the content on a daily basis. We also and reduce their risks of suffering spread of harmful content on social heard from academic researchers harm. Alongside our co-hosts at the media. Opening the event, Digital who have studied social media University of Nottingham, the Digital Wildfire project leader Professor phenomena such as the spread of Wildfire team also ran a youth panel Marina Jirotka noted the many rumour, (lack of) privacy, and online in which six young people presented benefits brought about by platforms ‘shaming’. Iain Bourne from the their views on digital citizenship. such as Facebook, Twitter, and Information Commissioner’s Office These highly articulate young people Instagram, describing their ability described data protection issues were winners of a competition to to enhance communication and surrounding social media content. answer the question ‘What makes societal cohesion. However she also Paul Giannasi, Head of the Cross- a good digital citizen on social highlighted the capacity for social Government Hate Crime Programme media?’ and each received a £100 media to facilitate the rapid spread at the Ministry of Justice, was joined prize voucher thanks to sponsorship of false information, inflammatory by Gabrielle Guillemin from freedom from Santander Universities. More content and hate speech, all of of speech organisation Article 19 information about the workshop is which can cause significant damage and academics from the Universities available at www.digitalwildfire.org across society. Marina argued for of Middlesex and Cardiff in a and clips of the presentations can be a collective debate to determine roundtable discussion about social seen on our ‘Digital Wildfire project’ effective and responsible ways to media regulation. YouTube channel. limit this spread of harmful content.

Our six youth panel winners were introduced by Elvira Perez Vallejos, University of Nottingham (far right of picture) and received prizes from Santander’s Mary Ridgway.

22 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford The ethics

of AI by Paula Boddington

The research project ‘Towards on the one hand, and codes and The project team is organising a a code of ethics for Artificial regulations on the other. Just as workshop on Ethics for Artificial Intelligence (AI) research’ is one of there are some risks in technology, Intelligence at IJCAI-16 in New 37 projects in an initiative, backed there are also risks in codes of York this July, which will also be by a $10m donation from Elon ethics – for instance, not only does a forum to discuss wider issues Musk, to ensure that AI ‘remains a code in itself fail to guarantee concerning AI and society. We are beneficial’. It is funded by the good behaviour, but complacently working with the journal Minds and Future of Life Institute, which aims thinking that ‘we’re the good guys, Machines to produce a special to support research ‘safeguarding we’ve done the ethics’ may even edition arising from our workshop. life and developing optimistic discourage careful examination of visions of the future’. the hard issues. The IEEE has embarked upon a programme of ‘values by This project is cross-disciplinary, Early work on the project has design’ which will produce a joint Professors Michael Wooldridge examined the particular challenges declaration on AI, autonomous of Computer Science and Peter AI gives for producing general ethical agents, and robotics, for its Millican of Philosophy, are guidelines. For instance, codes of 400,000 members as well as working with Paula Boddington, professional ethics are generally for wider propagation. Our a philosopher with a background based upon certain starting points. project is participating in an in the ethics of emerging One assumption is that the need IEEE subcommittee examining technologies, who joined the for a code arises from the relative lethal autonomous weapons. Department of Computer Science vulnerabilities of the layperson in We’ll be contributing to an IEEE in October to work on this project. relation to the professional, who has meeting on Ethical Considerations skills and knowledge the layperson in the Design of Autonomous The initial aim is to clarify the lacks; the professional is assumed Systems, collocated at the ECAI16 challenges which regulation in to be in control. However, with conference in The Hague in this field presents, drawing on AI, there are fears that in some August this year. lessons from other areas of rapidly circumstances, the ability to keep developing technology. ‘Ethical control might be compromised. So, Meanwhile, our project has also regulation’ often conjures up the should we only develop technologies contributed to a workshop at the idea that the aim is to curtail or where human control is retained at (British) Society for the Study ban research and development but all times? of Artificial Intelligence and the ethics should also be interpreted Simulation of Behaviour (AISB), much more positively, as assisting Likewise, codes of professional examining the five-year-old EPSRC with attempts to ensure that ethics talk of producing benefit Principles of Robotics to consider technology is developed in ways and avoiding harm. Yet, where a their continuing relevance. A report which have a positive impact. far-reaching technology such as will be delivered to the EPSRC and There is an ever-present need for AI is rapidly developing, it is harder more widely. dialogue between disciplines in to assess what changes would asking questions in ethics, and this count as beneficial, to assess who We’re very excited to be approach is far more promising would benefit most, and who might undertaking this work at a time than one which sees a stand-off be harmed. when so much is occurring in between science and technology the field.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 23 Celebrating Ada Lovelace in Oxford © Photos: Jennifer Balakrishnan

In 2015 we saw the bicentenary of mathematical papers has been made computer pioneer Ada, Countess of available online. Lovelace, famous for the prescient Will never forget it’, ‘in terms of paper she wrote about Charles A display in the Bodleian Library, interdisciplinary engagement Babbage’s unbuilt analytical engine, curated by Dr Mary Clapinson of across very different disciplines, it which led to her being called `the first the Bodleian, and Ursula Martin, was one of the best conferences programmer’. Celebrations were led brought to the forefront Lovelace’s I have been to’ and ‘I have never by Oxford’s Department of Computer childhood; her correspondence with attended a Symposium of such Science, in partnership with some Babbage; her mathematical notes multi-disciplinary interest, and such of the world’s major computing and speculations, and the only known constant intellectual and imaginative museums. photographs of Lovelace, kindly stimulation, provocation, nudging’. loaned by a private collector. The At the heart of the Oxford display has moved stateside for 2016, With Engineering and Physical celebrations were the archives of to the Computer History Museum in Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Lovelace family papers, deposited Mountain View, California, the world’s support, we partnered with Queen by their owners in the Oxford’s leading institution exploring the Mary University of London, whose Bodleian Library, and thus kindly history of computing and its ongoing cs4fn (Computer Science for Fun) made available to scholars globally. impact on society. is a global campaign to enthuse The 200th anniversary celebrations and teach both students and others saw a particular focus on Lovelace’s A Symposium in Oxford in about inter-disciplinary Computer mathematics, and, remarkably, its first December 2015 attracted around Science research. They have created study by professional historians of 300 participants, including 50 a special ‘Ada Lovelace’ edition of mathematics, including Christopher students, who heard interdisciplinary their cs4fn magazine, with around Hollings, of Oxford’s world-leading presentations from computer 20,000 copies distributed to UK History of Mathematics group, scientists, mathematicians, historians schools, and linked web activities. and Adrian Rice of Ralph Macon and a graphic artist. Working with The National Museum University, working with Professor of Computing in Bletchley, UK, and Ursula Martin. They’ve debunked The Symposium had an amazing the Computer History Museum, we many of the myths about Lovelace, and positive response in thank you developed a competition for young to show the advanced level at which notes, articles and tweets. Valerie women to ‘write a letter to Ada’, she was studying, and her deep Barr, Union College USA, summed up which attracted over 1,000 entries. and perceptive way of thinking. the interdisciplinary awareness: ‘As The National Museum of Computing Thanks to the generosity of the a computer scientist, I was humbled houses a rebuilt Colossus, the world’s Clay Mathematics Institute, and by the extent of research the scholars first electronic computer. We were the descendants of Ada Lovelace, from the humanities disciplines have delighted that Colossus veterans a digital edition of Lovelace’s done. They have faced a significant Irene Dixon and Betty O’Connell were big data problem, reading letters able to present the UK prizes at the and diaries from multiple people Ada Lovelace Symposium. that spanned decades, drawing connections between them, using All this was made possible through calendars and newspapers to confirm generous sponsors and partners: and clarify details.’ Others wrote: http://goo.gl/itwf5a ‘incredible experience, dramatic, Digitised versions of Ada’s letters: moving, educational, cathartic. http://goo.gl/wqVCe3

24 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford Update from the Networked Quantum Information Technologies project (NQIT)

Christopher Strachey, Oxford’s first professor of Computer Science, felt that those working in the theoretical and practical disciplines of computer technologies should work closely together. Following in this tradition, the Quantum Group are involved in the Networked Quantum Information Technologies project, or NQIT (pronounced ‘En-Kit’). Members of the Quantum Group discuss how they are working with colleagues in Physics and Materials Science to design a prototype quantum computer.

The approach being taken is to question of abstract notations for application is the development design simple components to the NQIT engine by digging down of so-called blind computing control small physical systems, to the physical construction of the protocols, in which an encrypted which can store the somewhat modules. As quantum systems problem may be safely solved by delicate quantum states required engineering is still the preserve an untrusted quantum computer. if one wishes to access more of experimental physicists, Niel This will be particularly important computational power than and Dominic consulted ion trap for ensuring equitable access to randomised algorithms. These experts Dr Chris Ballance and Dr quantum computing technology in modules are then connected Thomas Harty (Oxford’s Department its first generations — likely to be together using ‘entanglement’ of Physics) to determine what expensive devices controlled by a — the subtle phenomenon physical limitations (such as sources small number of companies and described by Einstein as ‘spooky of noise) could be expected of governments. action at a distance’. By sharing the small memory modules, and entanglement, the small modules outlined approaches to protecting Quantum computation has can perform more complicated quantum memories in a quantum transformed in the time since it computations, working in concert network. They then investigated was first proposed by American on their fragile quantum data the common features of those physicist Professor Richard by bridging the unforgiving protocols, and identified bialgebras Feynman and pursued by Oxford and choppy straits of the noisy as a promising mathematical Professor David Deutsch, from classical world between them. formalism for the analysis and what many viewed as a whimsical Provided with a few thousand design of the NQIT project. theoretical model, to a highly of these modules, one could, in speculative proposal for what principle, perform computations In another research program computations can be realised, that would stymie a conventional overseen by Dr Jonathan Barrett, and finally to a challenging ‘classical’ computer the size of a Postdoctoral Researchers Dr engineering problem. While the planet. Matty Hoban and Dr Nathan theoretical underpinnings of Walk are working on protocols quantum computation may now Under the guidance of Professor that exploit quantum phenomena be settled, Professor Christopher Samson Abramsky, and in for their security as well as Strachey would be heartened consultation with Professor Simon their computational power. by the fact that theoretical Benjamin of Material Sciences, In collaboration with optical computer scientists at Oxford are postdoctoral researchers Dr physicists, they are designing still engaged in the problem of Niel de Beaudrap and former prototype devices to securely designing and describing the next department member Dr Dominic generate random numbers and wave of computing technology. Horsman approached the transmit secret keys. Another major Inaugural Lovelace Lecture by Professor Barbara Liskov

The inaugural Ada Lovelace lecture took place on 27 October 2015 and was given by Barbara Liskov [pictured right], Institute Professor at the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, and winner of the 2008 ACM A.M. Turing Award for Computing.

This talk discussed how the abstraction mechanisms we use today came to be and how they are supported in programming languages. The lecture was generously supported by Facebook, and introduced by the company’s Head of Global Diversity, Maxine Williams.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 25 Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis gives Strachey Lecture

Dr Demis Hassabis, an Artificial AlphaGo was recently pitted Intelligence researcher and CEO against the three-times European of Google DeepMind gave a talk Champion Fan Hui in a game of at the Sheldonian Theatre on Go, to demonstrate the capabilities 24 February 2016 as part of the of AlphaGo. The computer won distinguished Strachey Lecture 5-0. The programme was able to series (generously sponsored combine intuitive pattern recognition by Oxford Asset Management). rather than brute calculation. We With reference to his position usually think of computers as using at the cutting-edge of Artificial brute calculation to achieve a goal, Intelligence (AI) research, Demis such as the logic involved in a game discussed the developments of chess, however the purpose of achieved by DeepMind since the AlphaGo was to have the computer company was founded in 2010 ‘think’ more like a human using (renamed once it was acquired intuitive pattern recognition. In by Google in 2014 to Google the same way as a human player, DeepMind). Google DeepMind’s the programme replicates making mission is to ‘solve intelligence, a move because it feels right (ie and then use that to solve intuitive pattern recognition) rather everything else.’ than using calculation to make a move based on a logical conclusion. In his introduction, Head of templates, for example the Apple Department Professor Michael programme Siri. Artificial general The game between AlphaGo and Wooldridge described Google Intelligence has the ability to be Lee Sedol, one of the world’s top DeepMind as ‘a company doing adaptive and inventive in relation Go players, was played (after the remarkable things at a remarkable to all tasks. Demis identified Deep Hassabis lecture took place) during point in their trajectory’ currently Blue (a chess computer designed March in Seoul, Korea, resulting in at the forefront of the international and produced by IBM in 1996) a 4-1 win for AlphaGo, the first time press for its achievements in playing as the first breakthrough for AI. an AI has beaten a top-ranked Go Go. For those unfamiliar with AI Although this was the first time professional. See p27. research, Google DeepMind’s a chess computer had beaten a CEO describes the research reigning champion under regular The lecture concluded with Demis’s conducted by the company as the time controls, Demis said that he plans for the future — in summary ‘Apollo programme for Artificial came away being more impressed to use advances in Artificial Intelligence’. The company by the opponent Garry Kasparov, Intelligence to solve real-world hopes to solve what is termed who was able to do more than just problems in healthcare, robotics internally by them as ‘artificial play chess. He could also speak and smart assistance. general intelligence’ enabling the several languages as well as tie his programme to think outside the box shoelaces! rather than through a strict regimen Information about future of programming for specific tasks, Evolving from this idea, Google Strachey Lectures can be termed by them as ‘narrow Artificial DeepMind has since developed found here: www.cs.ox.ac.uk/ Intelligence’. AlphaGo, an agent based on seminars/strachey/ artificial general intelligence, The Hassabis lecture is Most of the AI we interact with on learning automatically from raw available to view in full here: a daily basis is ‘narrow Artificial inputs, using reinforcement learning podcasts.ox.ac.uk/artificial- Intelligence’ which is only able to in order to be able to choose the intelligence-and-future deal with specific preprogrammed best possible action for a task.

26 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford AI solves a version of the 100 hat riddle

A team of Department of Computer process. Second, this paper provides Science academics has published a engineers with guidance on how to paper ‘Learning to Communicate to build simple and cheap machines that Solve Riddles with Deep Distributed could learn to act as a group so as to Recurrent Q-Networks’ which solve difficult problems — eg self- has been reported on by the New driving cars with limited perception Oxford Scientist and The Independent. that learn how to communicate so as to improve traffic flow and safety, Working with Google DeepMind, the distributed medical sensors that and team of researchers created an AI learn how to communicate so as to which is able to solve a variation of discover new treatments by making the ‘100 hat riddle’, a puzzle used in sense of the global picture. Third, AlphaGo Google job interviews. The research, it is encouraging that the same which extends existing algorithms, methods — deep neural networks could be developed to solve other and reinforcement learning — can It has been an exciting time for multi-agent communication problems. be used to solve riddles, play Atari the Department of Computer or reach human level performance in Science, as a Go-playing Professor Nando de Freitas, a Go; this re-assures us that we are on program developed by leading member of the research team the right scientific track to understand DeepMind, Google’s London- explains, ‘We wanted to investigate all aspects of intelligence.’ based artificial intelligence how AI individuals with limited lab, triumphed in a five match perception and reasoning can learn DPhil student Jakob Foerster tournament against Lee Sedol, to communicate so as to solve very comments, ‘The results show that one of the World’s top Go complex problems, so that the group we can reformulate tasks, which players. Sedol won just one as a whole benefits. Riddles and are made to be challenging for game, against AlphaGo’s four brainteasers are a fun and challenging humans, as communication-based AI victories. environment for both humans and AI problems and that our extension of agents. existing algorithms can successfully The tournament is the first solve these kind of challenges. For time a Go-playing program has We observed that the AI agents example, the AIs mange to discover beaten a grand master, and has learned communication protocols, the known optimal strategy for the been likened to the 1997 Chess and also learned to use objects in the hats riddle and invent novel solutions match between the computer environment to communicate — eg for the light bulb riddle. This research Deep Blue and Chess Master they learned to use the light switch also illustrates that AI research is a lot Garry Kasparov — it marks a in one of the riddles (the light bulb of fun and it’s great to see the interest huge step in the development riddle) to signal to other prisoners from the broader public!’ of artificial intelligence. that they had already been in the AlphaGo is the latest in a series interrogation room, and hence in the Another DPhil student, Yannis Assael of impressive achievements end they all tasted sweet freedom. concludes, ‘Our work paves the by DeepMind, and Oxford way towards a new class of multi- has been at the heart of it: This research is interesting to us for agent communication problems. Professor of Computer Science several scientific and engineering We believe that the challenge now Nando de Freitas and Oxford reasons. First, the behaviour of is to gain deeper understanding of Computer Science graduates the AI agents mirrors that of some the communication protocols that Karl Moritz Hermann and animals like vervet monkeys and arise and to see what other real Ed Grefenstette are all part honey bees, except that in our case applications we can solve with this of Google DeepMind. DPhil communication is learned rapidly approach.’ student Nal Kalchbrenner is instead of via a slow natural selection part of the AlphaGo team.

www.cs.ox.ac.uk Issue 8 Summer 2016 27 The TERESA robotics project counters isolation of elderly

Associate Professor Shimon Whiteson has recently joined the department. Here Shimon discusses a research project he is leading, that takes robotics in an unexpected direction, helping housebound elderly people to continue social interaction remotely.

The TERESA project aims to decisions regarding navigation develop a telepresence robot of and body pose in social settings. unprecedented social intelligence Instead, TERESA will have the — helping to pave the way for the social intelligence to perform these deployment of robots in settings functions automatically. This means that require substantial human that the controller does not have interaction. In telepresence systems, to be someone with advanced a human controller remotely interacts computer operation skills — making with people by guiding a remotely the technology accessible to a wider located robot, allowing the controller range of people. to be more physically present than with standard teleconferencing. The project is generating new insights promote healthy ageing. When the So, for example, a person with into socially normative robot behavior, elderly are sick and unable to travel mobility issues unable to attend and is also producing new algorithms to the day centre they are cut off from a social event in person. They will for interpreting social behavior, their social network, something that be able to remotely control a robot navigating in human-inhabited improved telepresence systems could that could move around the room, environments, and controlling body help address. Three experiments allowing the controller to participate poses in a socially intelligent way. involving dozens of elderly subjects in conversations and feel less Machine learning plays a key role have already been successfully isolated. TERESA robots will semi- in the project, from processing completed and a final experiment, autonomously navigate among audiovisual data to learning to evaluating the complete semi- groups, maintaining face-to-face quantify the ‘social value’ of different autonomous system, is planned for contact during conversations, and behaviours. October of this year. displaying appropriate body-pose behaviour. The project is conducting annual In a recent interview (Business Insider experiments in a day centre for UK, October 2015) Shimon explained The new telepresence system being the elderly in France, where elderly his vision of human-robot interaction, developed by project researchers people go to participate in physical ‘I really think in the future we are all frees the controller from low-level and intellectual activities designed to going to be cyborgs […People] have a tendency to think there’s us and then there’s computers. Maybe the computers will be our friends and maybe they’ll be our enemies, but we’ll be separate from them. But I think that’s not true at all, I think the human and the computer are really, really quickly becoming one tightly coupled cognitive unit.’

TERESA has received funding from the European Community’s Seventh Framework Programme (FP7- ICT-2013-10) under grant agreement n° 611153. The project partners are Oxford University, Imperial College London, University of Amsterdam, University of Twente, Universidad Pablo de Olavide and MADoPA.

28 Inspired Research: News from the Department of Computer Science, University of Oxford