Dr Seb Stein earned a prestigious Turing AI Acceleration Fellowship

Published: 11 December 2020

Dr Sebastian Stein will develop and trial citizen-centric AI systems in a range of applications.

Innovative research focused on developing trusted artificial intelligence (AI) systems will put people at their heart, involved in active decision-making, rather than having them act as passive providers of data.

The work has earned a prestigious Turing AI Acceleration Fellowship for Dr Sebastian Stein at the University of Southampton. Over the next five years, Dr Stein will use the £1.4m fellowship to develop and trial citizen-centric AI systems in a range of applications - from using crowdsourced information to assist in disaster response to helping people to manage their energy needs. The technology would also include for the provision of advice and medical support during epidemics like COVID-19.

“Novel approaches are needed to build AI systems that are trusted by citizens, that are inclusive and that achieve their goals effectively,” says Dr Stein of Southampton’s Agents, Interaction and Complexity (AIC) research group. “To enable this, citizens must be viewed as first-class agents at the centre of AI systems, rather than as passive data sources"