The Turing Podcast

The Alan Turing Institute

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The Turing Podcast is an exciting podcast from The Alan Turing Institute, the UK’s national institute for data science and artificial intelligence.

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59 episodes

Project Bluebird: Revolutionising Air Traffic Control with AI and digital twins

The Turing Podcast revisits Project Bluebird; a fascinating collaboration aiming to solve some of the biggest and most complex problems in air traffic control with digital twins and AI. Join Ed as he sits down with Nick Pepper of The Alan Turing Institute, George De Ash of the University of Exeter and Marc Thomas of NATS - the team behind Project Bluebird. First featured on our podcast in 2020, the team now provides a progress update at the midpoint mark. Learn how they are developing innovative AI to train a digital twin air traffic controller with the aim of enhancing aviation safety and functionality, and what the challenges are, integrating human expertise with machine intelligence.

55m
Jan 30
AI for Cyber Defence

This week the podcast, the hosts are joined by Kate Highnam and Myles Foley, both of whom are PhD candidates at Imperial College London working at the intersection of machine learning and cyber security. Kate and Myles were part of a team who last year won the CAGE challenge (Cyber Autonomy Gym for Experimentation), with their reinforcement learning-based solution. We chat about how advances in AI are being used to address challenges in cyber security, and what can and cannot be automated.

52m
Dec 21, 2023
Building Digital Tools for Polar Research

This week on The Turing Podcast we chat about some of the research going on in the collaborations between the British Antarctic Survey (BAS) and The Alan Turing Institute, including efforts to automate the route planning of ships in polar regions, and the building of a digital twin for Antarctica!  The hosts are joined by Dr Scott Hosking and Dr Jonathan Smith. Scott is Co-Director for the Alan Turing Institute Research and Innovation Cluster in Digital Twins, as well as the founder and leader of the BAS AI lab. Jonathan is a Principial Research Scientist, also at the BAS AI lab.

39m
Dec 15, 2023
Data Science for the Arts and Humanities

This week the hosts chat with Dr Katie McDonough and Dr Daniel Wilson. Katie is a lecturer in Digital Humanities in the Department of History at Lancaster University and a Senior Research Fellow at The Alan Turing Institute. Daniel is a Turing Research Fellow and historian of science and technology. The episode covers their research at the Turing and the growing intersection between the worlds of data science and the humanities and arts, with a focus on the MapReader software developed explore and analyse maps (and other images) at scale.

50m
Dec 01, 2023
Algorithmic Justice

In the first episode of The Turing Podcast season 4, the hosts are joined by Cari Hyde-Vaamonde, a PhD candidate at Kings College London and visiting lecturer in law. The episode discusses the field of Algorithmic Justice and Cari's work modelling the decision making process of judges.

52m
Nov 24, 2023
How do we regulate AI?

Artificial Intelligence has transformed the way we interact with technology, from voice assistants to autonomous vehicles. As the development and implementation of AI continues to grow at pace, the question of regulation is absolutely key.   Join Bea and Anneca as they discuss the ramifications of the EU's AI regulations framework with the Turing's Ray Eitel-Porter and Florian Ostmann. 

53m
Jul 21, 2023
Diagnosing Dementia with AI

Join Bea and Anneca as they discuss the potential and current AI tools being used around treating and diagnosing illnesses such as dementia, with Zoe Kourtzi. Zoe is Professor of Computational Cognitive Neuroscience at the University of Cambridge. Her research aims to develop predictive models of neurodegenerative disease and mental health with translational impact in early diagnosis and personalised interventions.

27m
Jun 05, 2023
Making the world add up with Tim Harford

In this week’s Turing Podcast, Ed chats with Tim Harford about the themes from his 2020 book “How to Make the World Add Up https://timharford.com/books/worldaddup/”, which include thinking about the ways statistics and numbers are (mis)used in the media and what we can do about it. Tim is an economist and presenter of the BBC radio show “More or less”.

1h 2m
May 09, 2023
The Coffee Pod - Fernando Benitez

Welcome to another Coffee Pod episode! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.   In this episode, Bea is joined with Fernando Benitez, a research associate. Fernando worked on PDRA - the Spatial Modelling project in the Shocks and the Resilience cross-theme project. 

17m
Apr 21, 2023
The Coffee Pod - Hussein Rappel

Welcome to the Coffee Pod! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.   In this episode, Bea is speaking to Hussein Rappel. Hussein has worked on the PDRA on Digital Twins in Infrastructure and Construction project in the Complex Systems Engineering theme.

15m
Apr 21, 2023
The Coffee Pod - Tom Andersson

Welcome to another episode of the Coffee Pod Podcast! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.  In this episode, Bea catches up with Tom Andersson, a data scientist. Tom's worked on the Turing/British Antarctic Survey on Environmental models: Bridging the spatial scales, from surface sensors to satellite sensors in the Environment and Sustainability cross-theme project.

17m
Apr 21, 2023
The Coffee Pod - Malvika Sharan

Welcome to another Coffee Pod episode! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.   Today Bea is speaking to Malvika Sharan, a senior researcher. Malvika works on Open Research in the Tools, Practices and Systems theme.

15m
Apr 21, 2023
The Coffee Pod - Domenic DiFrancesco

Welcome to another episode of the Coffee Pod podcast! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.  Joining Bea this week is Domenic DiFrancesco, a Turing Research Fellow. Domenic's worked on the project PDRA Digital Twins for Fleets and Supply Chain Management in the Ecosystems of Digital Twins cross-theme.

12m
Apr 21, 2023
How to Speak Whale

Following Tom Mustill’s popular Turing Lecture at the Royal Institution, How to Speak Whale, https://youtu.be/b4lZZlN_WdM Tom joins Bea and Jo to catch up on the latest advancements in communication between humans and animals. This lively edition of the Turing podcast covers a great variety of subjects, including some of Tom’s favourite (and surprising) whale facts, and whether attempting to chat with aliens should be prioritised over speaking with animals. A biologist and filmmaker, Tom has recently also turned writer. His debut book, How To Speak Whale: A Voyage into the Future of Animal Communication, was selected as one of Amazon's Best Books of The Year. 

51m
Apr 14, 2023
The Coffee Pod - Ruoyun Hui

Welcome to the first Coffee Pod episode! A short series about the Turing's AI for Science and Government fund, that gives you the chance to hear about the people behind the project. Each episode you’ll be listening to a different colleague, their background, career and most importantly… how they like their coffee.  Joining podcast host Bea this week is Ruoyun Hui, a postdoctoral research associate at The Alan Turing Institute.  This series is hosted by Bea Costa Gomes and produced by Luca Lane. The music has been produced by Spiders Eat Vinyl.

15m
Apr 06, 2023
AI in the financial sector

With Dr Adrian Weller (Programme Director and Turing Fellow) and Kate Platonova (Group Chief Data Analytics Officer at HSBC), Ed Chalstrey discusses how AI is being used in financial services and what data is useful in banking today.

1h 6m
Mar 10, 2023
The Stats Gap

Join Ed and David as they speak to Ellen Pasternack, a PHD student in evolutionary biology at the University of Oxford.  Ellen is a science writer for UnHerd and Works in Progress. In this episode, we’re going to chat about one of her most recent articles, "The Stats Gap", which explores the issues with statistical education for university scientists.

34m
Feb 24, 2023
How much can we limit the rising of the seas?

Join Aoife and Sally as they chat to Dr Tamsin Edwards about how she uses AI to predict rising sea levels, following her Turing Lecture at the Royal Institution. Tamsin is a climate scientist, specialising in the uncertainties of climate model predictions, particularly for ice sheets and glaciers.  Within her research, she also uses information about past climates to improve predictions for the future. In this podcast, we will be catching up with her as she answers some of the questions that the audience submitted at the Turing Lecture which did not get asked. Watch Tamsin's full Turing lecture here: https://youtu.be/CbEKI_LfNWA

48m
Jan 30, 2023
Driverless Vehicles

Join Aoife and Torty as they chat to Professor Sarah Sharples about the future and current state of the technology and AI around driverless vehicles. Sarah, chief scientific advisor for the department for transport recently did a Turing lecture at the Royal Institute, discussing the topic. In this podcast, she’ll be answering a range of different questions that weren’t answered from the audience at the lecture.

34m
Jan 17, 2023
Footballers on Twitter: What is fair game?

This week we are joined by Manchester United women's footballer Aoife Mannion, Author and CEO of Glitch Seyi Akiwowo and Turing Researcher Pica Johansson to discuss online abuse suffered by football players and other athletes online. The Turing recently partnered with OfCom, who comissioned a report in relation to its upcoming role as the UK’s Online Safety regulator tracking abuse on Twitter against football players in the 2021-22 Premier League Season. You can read more on this report here: Tracking abuse on Twitter against football players in the 2021-22 Premier League Season | The Alan Turing Institute https://www.turing.ac.uk/research/publications/tracking-abuse-twitter-against-football-players-2021-22-premier-league-season

56m
Dec 12, 2022
Turing deployment at sea: identifying plankton in real time

In this episode, hosts Bea and Anneca are joined by Robert Blackwell, from CEFAS (Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science), who tells us, among many other things, how an algorithm to detect different species of plankton developed in two weeks during a Turing DSG ended up being deployed six months later on a ship.

47m
Nov 16, 2022
Machine Learning for Armed Conflict Mediation

This week we welcome Dr Miguel Arana-Catania and Professor Rob Proctor from the University of Warwick, along with Dr Felix-Anselm van Lier from Oxford University. The episode discusses their recent work in using machine learning to analyze large-scale peace dialogue transcripts from the war in Yemen, with the aim to assist conflict mediators.

1h 3m
Sep 27, 2022
Living with Machines

This week the hosts are joined by David Beavan, a Senior Research Software Engineer and Dr Kasra Hosseini a Research Data Scientist, both of whom work in the Alan Turing Institute’s Research Engineering Group. The episode focusses on one of The Alan Turing Institute’s major research projects in the Digital Humanities known as “Living with machines”, which takes a fresh look at the history of the industrial revolution with data driven approaches. Find out more at https://livingwithmachines.ac.uk/ https://eur01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Flivingwithmachines.ac.uk%2F&data=05%7C01%7Cdwhitfield%40turing.ac.uk%7C209113fafb0947afc82808da6b2eadea%7C4395f4a7e4554f958a9f1fbaef6384f9%7C0%7C0%7C637940145466736245%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C3000%7C%7C%7C&sdata=OOfPCtCZgcmYUdT3ikpE6J8ATQeCbWUJBZ3q%2BGx%2Bp%2FQ%3D&reserved=0

51m
Aug 05, 2022
Data Science for Social Good: Predicting air pollution in a post-COVID world?

In this episode Christina catches up with two of her former collaborators, Prithviraj Pramanik and Dr. Subhabrata Majumdar. The three of them worked as volunteers at Solve for Good (a platform to connect social good organizations with volunteer data scientists to solve socially beneficial challenges). The team discusses their work with UNICEF to build a post-pandemic global air pollution model to help map child exposure to harmful air pollutants.

55m
Jun 10, 2022
The right to privacy

This week Ed and Rachel speak with Geoff Goodell, Senior Research Associate in the Financial Computing and Analytics group at University College London, and associate of UCL’s Centre for Blockchain Technologies and the LSE systemic risk centre. Geoff is an advocate for privacy as a human right in the digital world, in particular with regard to digital identity systems. Recorded in mid-2021, this episode takes a deep dive into some of the important topics surrounding people’s identities in the online world, including both the technical and ethical considerations.

1h 22m
Feb 18, 2022
The Turing Podcast asks: Where is Bitcoin headed?

Ed & Rachel are joined by Dr Tim Hobson, Senior Research Software Engineer and resident Bitcoin enthusiast at The Alan Turing Institute! Tim offers his take on the phenomenon that is Bitcoin, the future of its adoption and how the underlying technology relates to his research interests.

1h 31m
Feb 01, 2022
Careers in data science with Accenture

The latest episode of the Turing Podcast features a special roundtable discussion with our strategic partner Accenture about career options in the data science sector. The latest episode of the Turing Podcast features a special roundtable discussion with our strategic partner Accenture about career options in the data science sector. Our hosts Jo Dungate and Bea Costa Gomes were joined by three influential figures in AI and data science - Henrietta Ridley (Data Science Manager at Accenture), Alice Aspinall (Senior Manager at Mudano), and Kirstie Whitaker (the Turing’s Director for the tools, practices and systems programme). Our guests brought their different experiences and perspectives to an insightful discussion on various aspects of the data science industry, from how they first got into their fields, their career motivations and lessons learned along the way. The episode concludes with each guest offering advice to anyone at the beginning of their career.

50m
Nov 26, 2021
”The problems of AI” with James Geddes

This week on The Turing Podcast, the hosts chat with Dr James Geddes, who is a Principial Research Data Scientist in the Research Engineering Group at the Alan Turing Institute. The discussion revolves around an all-important question: What actually is AI? James breaks down three categories of computer programs that could be considered AI: Simulations, Symbolic AI and Machine Learning, and the hosts debate which, if any of these, are really intelligent! This week the podcast is hosted by Ed Chalstrey and introduces Christina Last.

1h 4m
Nov 05, 2021
You don’t need anybody’s permission to be a great mathematician

In this episode we talk to Dr Nira Chamberlain, president of The Institute of Mathematics and its Applications. We talk with Nira about Black History Month, mathematicians though history that have inspired him, and how mathematics can cross racial, geographical and cultural boundaries.

22m
Oct 15, 2021
Nicol Turner Lee: Bridging the digital divide

The hosts were joined by Dr. Nicol Turner Lee to discuss her research on public policy, designed to enable equitable access to technology and digital equity. We talk about themes in her recent book on the Digitally Invisible and the real-life consequences of the growing digital divide. Nicol Turner Lee is a speaker, author and technology innovator. As well as a senior fellow in Governance Studies and Director of the Centre for Technology Innovation at the Brookings Institution in Washington DC, where she also serves as Co-Editor in Chief of the blog, Tech-Tank.

53m
Oct 08, 2021