Author Archives: dssaisection

The emerging UK National AI Strategy is out of step with the needs of the nation’s technical community and, as it stands, is unlikely to result in a well-functioning AI industry. The Data Science & Artificial Intelligence Section (Royal Statistical Society) asks whether the government has actively sought the views of expert practitioners. The UKContinue reading “The UK AI Strategy: are we listening to the experts?”

I know reality doesn’t matter anymore. I get that beliefs no longer require an underlying connection to facts about the world. I’ve made my peace with all of that. Because, generally speaking, I don’t care what you think. If you want to believe that 5G towers can spread viruses, be my guest. But a falseContinue reading “This pandemic belief is mad, bad and dangerous to know”

A critical piece of the UK Test and Trace infrastructure failed hard this week. All contacts of almost 16,000 COVID-19 infected people were allowed to circulate unknowingly for an entire seven days in the community. That’s about 50,000 people. I’m not going to complain about Public Health England (PHE) using excel to merge the testContinue reading “How not to lose 16,000 COVID-19 test results: a data scientist’s view”

I recently advised caution about COVID-19 research performed by people without a background in infectious diseases. Some people hated that advice. I’m going to show an example of why it matters. In recent weeks, entrepreneur Jeremy Howard has led the #Masks4All campaign to make it mandatory to wear cotton face masks in public. Howard claimsContinue reading “The effectiveness of cloth masks has been misrepresented by #Masks4All”