Popular science

A week or so ago to the Royal Institution to hear about how artificial intelligence was going to save the world. A so-called debate which was part of this year's Biology Week.

Fine bright afternoon, not matched by the large fig tree opposite platform 4 which was looking very limp.

Got to Albemarle Street, to be greeted by a rollers with 'RRR 1' on its plaque minéralogique (as Simenon would say). We wondered how much that would add to the quarter or million or so asking price for the car when new? Was it thrown in as a freebie? I associate to a nearby carpet shop which once told us that his carpets were often thrown in as freebies with expensive cars.

Next up, an unsold art work from one of the nearby galleries, put out for the dustbin men. Perhaps a pupil of Dame Trace? Snapped left.

Next up, the Goat, to find that quickie has been discontinued. Had to make do with something else. But at least the far eastern barmaid had the wit to be amused by the name of the stuff. See reference 2.

And so to a very full house at the Institution. We were not the only people to be drawn by the phrase 'artificial intelligence' in the title, this despite what for me is the often unsatisfactory format of a panel of speakers, each giving a short talk. In this case, four speakers given ten minutes each.

Three introductions, all rather feeble, albeit in different ways. First the Institution itself, then a Biology Week person and lastly the panel chair. Biology Week being put on by the Royal Society of Biology, the Biochemical Society and the British Pharmacological Society. (I probably conversed with a member of this last at the event noticed at reference 3. Or was that the Royal College of Pharmacists?) The time would have been better spent shared out among the speakers who followed, given the derisory amount of time they had been given for what they were trying to get over.

First, Ji Zhou told us about agricultural imaging applications. Which seemed to boil down to using fancy software to analyse images of plots and fields taken from drones and aeroplanes. Which, by improving crop management, will not doubt turn out to be a good thing in years to come. Also about a robot which can creep about trials fields taking pictures. Maybe other kinds of samples too.

Second, Aldo Faisal told us about an eye movement activated wheel chair. So a gadget mounted in front of the rider was able to monitor eye movements, and the computer could use that and its knowledge of the immediate environment to work out when the rider was looking at something that he wanted to go to, as opposed to just looking at it. Taking account of whatever obstacles that might be in the way. Clearly a good thing if you are wheel chair bound.

Third, Maja Pantic, a big bug in the i·bug group to be found at reference 4 (and reference 5), told us something about face and emotion recognition software. How her computer could look at a face in a crowd and not only work out who it was, but also whether the face was happy or sad or whatever. Useful for big stores who want to micro-manage the behaviour of shoppers. The most impressive speaker of the various people on offer.

Fourth, Nasir Rajpoot told us something about using clever software to analyse medical images from scanners. Part of this story being that modern cameras mean that computers can analyse images in far more detail and far faster than any human could manage. With some of his images running to 100Gb - which sounds rather outrageous, but that is what my rather sketchy note on OneNote says. His line was that computers would not replace doctors in the analysis of medical images, but they are fast becoming an essential aid. Also our only hope of dealing with the flood of medical images now piling up in in-trays in radiography departments everywhere.

Questions time pretty feeble. But then what can one expect when so much ground has been covered in so short a time?

Not for the first time, struck by how scientists can be a bit optimistic about how their bit of science is going to change the world and about how worries about the wider implications of their bit of science are probably overcooked/misplaced/just plain wrong.

While I think we were all struck by the fact that none of the main speakers were of British ethnic origin, although one or two of them might well have been born here. And one speaker pointed out that a lot of science in this country was funded by EU money, which the government might well not make up after Brexit. Another pointed out that one of the reasons that science was good in this country was that it was open to all comers. Something else which might change after Brexit.

Offered a seat on the tube portion of the journey home by a middle aged man, possibly Turkish. Was I looking very distinguished, very feeble or both?

By the time we got off at Vauxhall we had a severely disabled man in a wheel chair riding in our carriage. Which made me think that he must have had a lot of guts. Not sure how I would feel about being stuck down some tunnel, apt to involve a lot of stairs, firmly stuck in my wheel chair. With or without minder.

And so to the Rising Sun at Epsom, with some pretensions to being a drinkers' pub, despite food being sold out the back. And including a blast from the past in the form of a former colleague from my time at the Home Office, possibly about to embark on his own retirement.

PS: Wikipedia says: 'In French, vehicle registration plates are called plaques d'immatriculation or plaques minéralogiques. The latter makes a reference to the national mining administration, which was responsible for issuing the plates in the early 20th century'. I think I had known about this last, but had completely forgotten, while remembering that the striking phrase meant number plate.

Reference 1: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/10/more-counting.html. An earlier post, prompted by this very event - from which one might infer that the event was less than fully gripping.

Reference 2: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/gravitational-waves.html.

Reference 3: https://psmv3.blogspot.com/2018/04/belgravia.html.

Reference 4: https://ibug.doc.ic.ac.uk/. Maja Pantic.

Reference 5: http://facesoft.org/. Maja Pantic.

Reference 6: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/data-science/research/multidisciplinary-labs/behavioural-analytics-lab/. Aldo Faisal.

Reference 7: https://www.turing.ac.uk/people/researchers/nasir-rajpoot. Nasir Rajpoot.

Reference 8: http://www.earlham.ac.uk/ji-zhou. Ji Zhou.