RoboTIPS: Developing Responsible Robots for the Digital Economy

Lead Research Organisation: University of Oxford
Department Name: Computer Science

Abstract

This fellowship will bring together a variety of people from different walks of life, including academics, industry, civil societies, policy makers and members of the public, in order to create new ways of developing and managing technological innovations. There is often a tension between the economic needs for increasing technological innovation and the ways in which these innovations may be developed responsibly - that is in a manner that is societally acceptable and desirable. We will develop an approach that aims to anticipate not only the positive outcomes but also the potentially negative consequences of technological innovations for society. We will draw on this and an understanding of people's lived rights and obligations to provide creative resources and methods for designers to develop responsible and accountable new technologies. Responsible Innovation lies at the heart of technologies in the Digital economy that aim to promote trust, identity, privacy and security.

Although it has been drawn on in other scientific domains, as yet we have no complete example of how responsible innovation can be successfully applied in the DE sector. The fellowship will consider a motivating example to develop responsible innovation in action. We will look into one particular domain of technology and develop an agile process which will take account of the views of a wide range of people in a fast-changing context, in order to have some influence over the trajectory of an innovation. We will focus on the domain of social robots, those which interact with people and make decisions about what to do on their own accord. Because they make their own decisions in order to perform actions, we need to be able to recover what they did and why they did it, when things seem to go wrong. We will develop an ethical black box (EBB) through which the social robot will be able to explain its behaviour in simple and understandable ways. The development of the EBB will be an example of responsible innovation. We will test this out in particular accident investigations as a social process and we will do this in 3 different study domains. In the final stages of the fellowship, we will show the outcomes of the technological development and the investigations through a variety of means, including through the web and a final public showcase event. This will be to a variety of people including the general public, policy makers, and developers.

Planned Impact

Science:
Key scientific communities will benefit from the knowledge generated by the fellowship and its responsible innovation (RI) approach. This includes fields across robotics, human robot interaction, robot ethics, ethical design, value sensitive design, Human-Computer Interaction, Artificial Intelligence and the social sciences. In particular, the development of the ethical black box (EBB) will form a motivating example of RI that is both human centred and based on a Trust, Rights and Relational approach, and that can generalised to other domains and technologies. The findings of the programme of work and its unique approach will be disseminated through high quality publications and conferences.
Industry:
The fellowship will develop a unique transparency mechanism that that can make robotic decision making open and accountable and thereby foster user trust in social robots across society. This fellowship work will therefore enhance responsibility in industry and advance the acceptance of social robots. The development of the EBB will benefit industry in the specific domains studied in phases 1 and 2 and will also reach a broader range of settings through later activities that will generalise the study findings and RI approach. Impact will be fostered through a series of stakeholder workshops and designer studies and will be supported by the fellowship's industrial partners.

Designers and innovators: The fellowship will benefit designers and innovators by fostering a reflective and inclusive innovation process and developing a Trust, Rights and Relational based approach to design which acknowledges the lived experiences of users and the networks and ecosystems they inhabit. Research activities involving design and innovation stakeholders will deepen understanding of how these professionals currently practice. This understanding will then be drawn on to produce mechanisms through which designers and innovators can embed responsibility within the development of technologies for the digital economy (DE). These mechanisms will include a responsibility toolkit.

Policy: The fellowship will engage critically with the concept of responsibility in the DE and will explore and engage with new forms of anticipatory governance. The perspectives of policy stakeholders will be elicited across the study and the outcomes of this engagement will be combined with other project activities to develop a responsibility toolkit and specify an agile governance approach for social robots. This fellowship will thereby benefit policy makers seeking to identify novel and effective means to regulate the use of social robots and, through the generalisation of the study findings, other innovative technologies.

Society and the general public: The EBB will benefit the wellbeing of citizens in the DE by fostering accountability in the use of social robots and a culture of transparency and responsibility in their use. It will also produce broad societal benefit through the development of a Trust, Rights and Relational approach which will elicit the concerns of citizens and consider how to address them in order to increase trust and forge better relationships to maximise the potential of new digital technologies. The fellowship will include dedicated public engagement and communications activities - to include educational materials, a video animation and participation in public understanding of science events.
 
Description Requirements for and development of the Ethical Black Box (EBB)

Through the analysis of relevant literature and discussions with industry developers we have continued to identify the requirements for the Ethical Black Box for social robots. These include technical requirements such as compatibility with standard operating systems and formats for data storage, and non-functional requirements regarding the deployment of robots in different social contexts. We have published a draft Open Standard for an EBB for social robots. Coding work to build a software EBB module for ROS-based robots that conforms with our open standard is in progress. Our next steps are to: 1) stress test the framework (open standard and its implementation) for the EBB; 2) publish the EBB source code; 3) revise and extend our open standard for the EBB.

Accident/Incident investigation scenarios and witnessing.

On April 7th, 2022, at Bristol Robotics Lab, the project team ran a pilot test of the mock accident investigation process based on the social care scenario previously defined. The goal of the pilot was to rehearse the accident scenario and the investigation procedure in preparation for the full event. On July 15th, 2022 at Bristol Robotics Lab, we successfully staged the full mock investigation. The accident scene was brilliantly enacted by 5 non-professional volunteers alongside the Pepper robot, programmed with a predefined behaviour. Two investigators - experts in the fields of accident investigation and robot safety, respectively - were given the task of uncovering the sequence of events by inspecting the scene of the accident, questioning the witnesses and examining the robot's data logs. In the end, the investigators correctly deduced the role that the robot played in the accident, providing helpful feedback on how the EBB can be used in practice.

The mock accident investigation is one of the research objectives of the RoboTIPS project, in which we aim at answering the following questions: (1) What does an investigation process for robot-related accidents look like? (2) What role does/could black box data from the robot play in this process? And (3) To what extent do human-robot interactions need to be logged, and how, in order to satisfactorily inform the accident investigation process?

With respect to the three questions, we are still elaborating the main results of the simulation, which will be published in an open access journal. In the following list, we anticipate some of the main findings:
• With respect to research question number 1, an accident happening in a care home with a care robot could potentially fall between several regulators: the Healthcare Safety Investigation Branch, the Health and Safety Executive and the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency. Therefore, we notice that there is uncertainty on who should be the correct enforcing authority for the investigation of the accident. Moreover, our investigators pointed out that currently there is no standardised or accepted procedure around the investigation of accidents involving care robots. Hence the need to set up sub-groups, within the designated branch, specialized in dealing with robot accidents. Indeed, investigators involved in the simulation, pointed out that robot accident investigators, besides having a level of forensic skills, they would also need to possess some technical background. In other words, given the complexity of the technology involved in the accident, robot investigators should receive training to develop the technical skill and understanding of robot design that enable them to have a sense of what they might expect to see, or not see, in their area of investigation.
• As to research question number two, according to investigators, the black box data readout was helpful and contributed to solving ambiguities. Indeed, they pointed out that it could have been possible to reconstruct what happened without the data logged, but to answer why and how to prevent the accident happening again would be impossible without the black box data. Alongside malfunctions, potential issues with the EBB include overtrust and confirmation bias: while such recorders may be helpful, they may also lead to overtrust that leads an investigation down a false trail. For this reason, EBB data must be used alongside forensic evidence and witness testimony.
• Finally, with respect to question number three, we found that specific data would be needed to investigate accidents related to the psychological safety of users. These data may include audio, video, but also the user's emotional status and other information on the interaction with the robot. It goes without saying that the collection of this kind of data opens technical as well as ethical and legal issues.

Next steps. We are currently preparing the second mock accident investigation. This time the focus of the research will be on the role of the EBB in reconstructing the causes leading to psychological harm. The pilot event is schedule by the end of April 2023. We have already received ethical approval for running the simulations.

Trust, rights and relational approach to design

Having conducted a series of online stakeholder workshops bringing together experts on design, policy, and ethics, among others, we have analysed their responses to key concerns and considerations for social robotics. These key concerns include not just the robot itself but focus on both the human user and the human users' broader network: their friends, families, and other connections impacted by the robot and how the robot functions. These concerns have been expanded into the 'developer framework;' a framework that helps teams producing robots to engage with the human-centred concerns of social robotics. Rather than acting as a checklist, the framework is intended to provoke thoughtful consideration of how the robot will impact its human users - directly, in the case of a 1:1 user/robot interaction; indirectly, as in cases where the robot has an impact on those in the social network of the primary user; and systemically, such as the impacts that the robot's creation and use will have on the environment.

This framework has been expanded and analysed in consultation with a series of experts in a variety of areas, including robotics, ethics, law, and human/robot interaction. The framework has also been applied to on ongoing robotic development project in order to assess the functional potential of the framework, as well as to garner feedback from the team building the robot. The framework is currently being digitised in order to solicit feedback from a wider range of users and experts, and this feedback will further refine the framework itself, as well as inform potential avenues for future use. The framework will also form a tool in the portfolio of the centre for doctoral training.

Variable Autonomy The incorporation of social robots into everyday contexts also problematises understandings of autonomy, and by extension identity. Interacting with a robot in a given scenario creates a fluidity of autonomy in which a user may have more or less control over decision making depending on the task at hand. We are interested in autonomy as it relates to humans in a given context and the capacity they have to exercise control, or more broadly, to manage a given situation. Variable autonomy (VA) is an approach in engineering that seeks to dynamically distribute control of activities between robotic agents and human counterparts. We have conducted a developmental review on variable autonomy based on a sample of 42 papers. The goal of the review is to set the foundation for a research agenda that investigates the relationship between variable autonomy and the responsible design and use of robotics. The review has been accepted for publication subject to revisions in the Journal of Transactions on Human Robot Interaction. The main findings, taken from the article submitted, are the following:
• "We define variable autonomy in robotics as 'An interaction strategy between human and robot agents in which the robot's level of autonomy varies during operation in response to changes in context'".
• "Based on the research designs and sites of empirical studies, most variable autonomy implementations have not been evaluated in contexts that reflect the dynamism and complexities of the real-world, a central factor motivating variable autonomy research."
• "From the motivations discussed in the papers and the evaluation measures employed in empirical studies, variable autonomy research is driven by performance-based values, such as efficiency and effectiveness in relation to some task. Additionally, the perspectives of human participants are reduced to questions of mental workload, preference, and technology acceptance. There is a need to conduct more holistic evaluation of variable autonomy implementations that combines a diversity of quantitative measures and qualitative explorations of participants' experiences."
• "Participants included in empirical studies are limited in terms of representativeness and diversity. For one, most study participants are either university students or members of the research team, populations that may not represent relevant stakeholder groups. Secondly, the only stakeholder role investigated across the reviewed studies is that of the operator, whereas a robot in a practical context is likely to interact with networks of different humans".
• "Variable autonomy implementations vary along four dimensions: Initiative: The agent that initiates changes in the robot's autonomy; Specificity: The aspects of autonomy that are changed; Flexibility: The point at which autonomy changes are determined; Trigger: The contextual features that stimulate changes in autonomy."

Based on these preliminary insights, relevant for our work will be the identification of the different humans (and their roles) who are involved in the network of relationships (aka constellation) existing between a robot and a user and the networks and ecosystem they inhabit. A collaboration with the 'Enabling Advanced Autonomy through Human-AI Collaboration' project has been established in which we have explored the concept of VA and its related risks in the field of Artificial Intelligence. The project was led by Prof Michael Rovatsos, from the University of Edinburgh and funded by the Alan Turing Institute. In other to explore the role of Responsible Innovation as applied to Artificial Intelligence, we performed a number of structured searches of two academic databases and analysed the resulting lists of publications. After filtering for those papers of immediate interest, we analysed in depth a set of 78 papers directly discussing AI and RI. We identified eight categories of papers including an emerging area of "Responsible AI" and categories of papers with a focus on AI or on other philosophical approaches using AI as a worked example or case study. We also identified a number of particular application areas, notable Robotics and Human Machine Interaction. The much larger literature which uses the language of Ethics or of Responsibility expressed in other ways is also of interest to the extent that it overlaps with Responsible Innovation and addresses areas of common interest, such as the explainability of AI. Finally, we investigated the interactions of the different focuses of interest by an analysis of keywords for a subset of these papers. The analysis of data is still ongoing. Among the preliminary results, we point out the presence of 9 main thematic clusters which were identified from 85 publications reviewed:
1. Responsible AI
2. Frameworks
3. Applications
4. Social benefits/challenges
5. Education (of engineers etc) in RI/social issues
6. Value Sensitive Design
7. AI FOR Responsibility
8. Philosophy
9. Responsible Innovation per se

In addition, we conducted Ethical Risk Assessments of the various sub-projects within the 'Enabling Advanced Autonomy through Human-AI Collaboration', based on the method set out in British Standard BS 8611:2016, and delivered a report summarising the risk assessments.

Agile anticipatory governance:

The 'Re-Imagined Policy Space' or 'RIPS' research has taken an investigatory research examination of existing policy improvement projects. These include, in particular, those projects endeavouring to incorporate research and evidence-based information into policymaking. This research has revealed a variety of such projects, both current and historic. The field of policy improvement is not a new one, and both suffers and benefits from the sheer variety of inputs with which it is faced. The RIPS research has identified lack of effective communication pathways and the time to engage with them as one of the various pressures on policymakers, as well as other stakeholders in the policy space. Recognising this, the RIPS project seeks to produce a pilot form of communication that aims to make research communication accessible not just to analogous academics, but to policy makers, affected parties, and knowledge brokers. These communications should be accessible research summaries laying out major questions, impacts, and shareholders, ensuring routine, free access to research. This style of communication draws on existing strategies such as bite sizing, tailoring findings to particular teams, and providing research in a way that highlights its effects on policy concerns. RIPS aims to remove communication barriers, address the evidence-policy gap, and inform the ROAMEF (rationale, objectives, appraisal, (implementation) monitoring, evaluation, feedback) cycle.

Next steps in the project will include examining the optimal specifics of such communication, and the soliciting feedback about the approach from intended recipients and potential audiences.

AI regulation

We have taken part in further events to discuss the growing prevalence of AI in society and the opportunities for AI regulation. This has helped us to relay and uncover issues of interest and concern to different stakeholder groups. For instance, the designers and implementers of automated decision-making systems are aware of ethical concerns regarding automation and are keen for their work to be supported with guidance for good practice. They are particularly interested in guidance on real world dilemmas that emerge when they are developing and testing their technologies - as opposed to high level thought experiments over abstract scenarios. We also achieve impact in this work by contributing to important discussions on safe, trustworthy and responsible AI, with a variety of stakeholders including industry and policymakers. We have also contributed to governance calls for evidence on AI and Ethics.
Exploitation Route Three years in, and the Covid-19 pandemic notwithstanding, the project is already achieving academic and non-academic impact. We expect this to continue and grow significantly as we move forwards. We published an open standard for the Ethical Black Box and a toolkit for robot developers and designers to help them engage with responsible design practices, specifically in the areas of trust, rights, and relations - helping to protect digital rights of both users and their network.
Sectors Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Healthcare,Government, Democracy and Justice,Transport
URL https://www.robotips.co.uk/
 
Description Through the span of the project we have produced a range of impacts. Research Since the start of the project, we have successfully written papers for various venues, including: Artificial Intelligence, the conference on Human Robot Interaction, the CHI conference on Human Factors in Computing, and the ACM Halfway to the Future conference, and Nature Machine Intelligence. We have a published book chapter on Robot Accident Investigation in an edited book on Software Engineering in robotics and two more papers in international journals. We have also given presentations at several research workshops and conferences. We have an ongoing collaboration with another study on the design and development of a smart toy for children, and a paper is in preparation. We have contributed to ongoing research being conducted by others through attendance at workshops and through sharing our work on best practice for online fieldwork. Marina Jirotka has secured funding for a sister project 'RoboTIPS International' through a donation to the University of Oxford from Amazon Web Services. The RoboTIPS International will take the concept of the EBB and the findings of the RoboTIPS project and apply them in international contexts. We are currently completing the recruiting process and the new PDRA will work on this initiative and conduct research to explore the different socio-technical factors relevant to the implementation of the EBB in robot systems in different countries. With the same Amazon Web Services gift, Marina Jirotka has also funded and launched the Responsible Technology Institute (RTI), which she is currently directing. This aims to be an international centre of excellence on responsible technology, to discuss and develop culturally nuanced approaches to responsibility and responsible innovation (RI). The objective is to take an international focus on the societal challenges presented by new and emergent technologies; unpack complexities around understandings of responsibility and different regulatory environments; and address gaps that exist in industry-related approaches to responsible technology. The Institute draws together strands of ongoing research and investigations of relevance to academia, policy and industry - it directly collaborates with researchers from the Department of Computer Science at Oxford, the Oxford Robotics Institute, and other departments and divisions. It harnesses wider networks across the globe and works collaboratively with other organisations in order to act as a hub and touchpoint on responsible technology for different disciplines. The Institute also provides advice and support for policy makers and government and seeks to foster public dialogue on RI. Under the umbrella of the RTI, we are investigating some of the themes that have been brought into clearer focus within the RoboTIPS project, including data governance and sustainability concerns. One of the most relevant and related projects is the 'EBBHRD: Ethical Black Box in the Context of Human-Robot Dialogue', in which we plan to develop a scalable digital platform running on AWS Cloud Services. EBBHRD-v1.0 detects the type of the conversation between human and robot, detects the social factors in humans, tracks and stores the parameters of NLP pipeline and maintains the state of the knowledge graph. Finally, a further direct impact of the RoboTIPS project is the creation of the RTI Student Network, which is an international and interdisciplinary student-led organisation (based at the University of Oxford) with the goal of connecting students interested in topics related to responsible research and innovation. A first outcome of the Student Network was the organisation of the 'Responsibility in Industry' and expert panel event held in September 2021. Policy In May 2019 the UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics produced a report on Trust, Transparency and Technology. The report discussed how to build ethical data policies for the public good and specifically discusses the idea put forward by Alan Winfield and Marina Jirotka of the Ethical Black Box as a mechanism to foster societal trust by investigating incidents and accidents involving social robots. The report recommends the adoption of black boxes in automated vehicles. Through attendance at stakeholder engagement events the project team has also contributed to do the development of policy recommendations. These include the RUSI report 'Data Analytics and Algorithms in Policing in England and Wales: Towards A New Policy Framework' and ongoing work by the Royal Academy of Engineering to discuss the challenges of ethics and bias in AI systems. In collaboration with Policy Connect, the RoboTIPS team organised two virtual roundtables on the ethical black box (EBB) as an essential technology for accident and incident investigation in the use of social robots. The goal of the first event was to raise MPs awareness on the potential benefits of the ethical black box and to discuss with them what could be the best way to implement the EBB on social robots. The first event took place on Wednesday 9th February 2022 from 10 to 11:30 am. The roundtable was chaired by Lord Holmes, Co-Chair of the APGDA and among the speakers there were Marina Jirotka, Alan Winfield and Lord Clement Jones. The roundtable was attended by about 30 people. The goal of the second event, was to discuss on standards and how they can contribute to the responsible development of autonomous systems. The second event took place on Thursday 14th April 2022 from 10 to 11.30 am. The roundtable was chaired by Daniel Zeichner chair of the APGDA and among the speakers were Marina Jirotka, Alan Winfield and Lord Holms. In summer 2022, RoboTIPS organised a panel discussion with Lord Tim Clement-Jones, Professor Alan Winfield, and the head of the RoboTIPS project, Marina Jirotka, to speak on policy engagement in ethical innovation. The event was attended both in person and online, with thoughtful and informed questions provided by both fora. The event took place in the framework of the first ever Oxford Policy Engagement Network (OPEN) Showcase, which provided a variety of engagement events around the university's many policy endeavours. Finally, on February 22nd 2023, Marina Jirotka was invited as a speaker in a panel debate as part of a virtual evidence sessions which focusses on uncovering key current developments in the UK on creating ethical AI regulation, as well as looking at what is happening in other jurisdictions, and lastly examining any big issues around ethics in the supply chain. The roundtable was organised by the APPG on Data Analytics as their third inquiry into artificial intelligence (AI) and data ethics. Marina Jirotka became also a Steering Committee member of the APPG. In the same month, the project team responded to the APGDA call for evidence on Artificial Intelligence and Ethics. The purpose of the Call for Evidence was to gather first hand insights from industry professionals, academics, and members of civil society on standards and regulation for the ethical use of AI in the public, private and third sectors. The APGDA recommendations maybe used to feed into the Government's forthcoming White Paper and consultation. Industry We are building pathways towards positive impact on industry. We have established partnerships in the project with a number of robotics companies - for instance Open Bionics and Consequential Robotics - and discuss matters of good practice in design and development with them. As the project has gone on we have developed further collaborations, for instance with Hewlett Packard and Akara Robotics. We have given presentations and been involved in panel discussions on good practice at a number of events involving industry - for instance the Future of Care workshop organised by the West of England Health Science Network and the AI Botics Global Conference. We are currently in discussion with a potential industry partner to disseminate responsible development tools produced from our research. Education We have one doctoral student working alongside the project who has recently successfully defended his thesis on Autonomous Vehicles and Explainability We have also provided opportunities for three postgraduate students to gain project experience by working directly on tasks in the study. Starting from the summer of 2021, three MSc students - 1 in Oxford supervised by Prof Marina Jirotka, Dr Helena Webb and Alan Winfield and 2 at Bristol supervised by Prof Alan Winfield. The students worked on projects focusing on issues connected to the EBB - explainability and data visualisations. The student from Oxford successfully developed and implemented a software of the Ethical Black Box, capable of recreating a simulation of the robot actions taken to aid in explainability. The 2 students from Bristol, both worked on aspects of explainability. One successfully implemented a robot capable of giving a spoken explanation its most recent action, in response to the spoken question "Robot, why did you do that?". The other student implemented a simulation-based internal model to explore its potential for allowing the user to ask a robot "What would you do if xxx" questions. We have taken part in workshops and mentoring sessions for PG students and given presentations about the project at outreach events for school children. As to school children, in collaboration with a professional jazz musician (Mr Dominic Howles) we are currently working on a public engagement project. The goal of the project is to develop short stories targeted to year 9 students (13-14 years old) and teachers of ICT and computing subjects. The stories will be accompanied by animations and jazz music and will be made freely available to national schools. The stories have the potential for both analytical engagement in classes, and broader discussion through student art projects in expanding on the stories' approaches, themes, and wider impacts. Arts We continue our collaboration with artists. Dr Martin Clancy from Trinity College, Dublin has given a talk on "Beyond Human Creativity: Navigating the Legal and Ethical Implications of AI-Generated Art in a Posthuman World", as part of the Computer Science department seminars. The seminar took place in person on March 7th, 2023 and it was open to anyone from the University of Oxford but particularly promoted to graduate students in computer science. The above-mentioned collaboration with the jazz musician is also likely to produce artistic outcomes, i.e., original jazz music, short stories and animations Public We have engaged with the public on project issues by participating in a research stand at the 2019 Oxford IF Science and Ideas Festival. We have also written about the project in Inspired Research, the outreach magazine of the Department of Computer Science at Oxford, blog posts and on our own project website. A Twitter account was set up for the project mid-March 2021 to disseminate project information and events (https://twitter.com/robotips4). Our planned public engagement activities for summer 2020 were unfortunately cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic however in summer 2021 we participated in the RAS Festival of Robotics by running a fun, interactive public engagement session that builds on ideas from our virtual witness testimony fieldwork. In spring 2021 we took part in a workshop held by Neon Dance to discuss our collaboration with them and we have also prepared a podcast which was broadcasted as part of the Oxford Sparks public engagement initiative. In 2022, the PI Marina Jirotka and co-PI Alan Winfield participated in the AI Festival organised by the AI and Data Analysis Network at Oxford Brookes. Marina was invited to the Women in AI panel discussion on Monday 20th while Alan was invited to a public talk and panel, "How to make an ethical robot, and why we probably shouldn't", on 21 February 2023. Pericle Salvini has secured funding for a Minderoo-Oxford funded public engagement project to launch a community lab to develop community decision-making processes about Responsible Innovation and new technologies such as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and robotics. The community lab is based at the Upper Norwood Library Hub (UNLH) in South London. The community lab will host five sessions in the year, each focused on one facet of AI/robotics, led by experts from Oxford University (from the Departments of Engineering and Computer Science) and ORBIT-RRI Ltd. The first session took place on March 4th and it was about age-appropriate AI for children. There were 60 participants (45 attending in person and 15 online). After the presentation, the room was divided in 3-4 breakout groups to discuss three main questions: 1) what you would like to see AI in the future, 2) what you think about AI for young people, and 3) what changes are needed. In 2023, the team submitted applications to participate in the Hay and IF festivals during the summer. We propose to organise an entertaining technology-focussed session by inviting a distinguished lecturer and activist to discuss responsible technological innovation in concert with a series of short stories, accompanied by live jazz music and eye-catching visual animations. People of all ages will enjoy this astounding and thought-provoking presentation, alongside those with a passion for live performances (in particular storytelling, jazz music and animations) or a desire to know more about the implications of technological innovation.
First Year Of Impact 2020
Sector Education,Government, Democracy and Justice,Transport,Other
Impact Types Societal,Policy & public services
 
Description APGDA Data Analytics on Ethical use of data and artificial intelligence
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics (APGDA) Providing written evidence on "Artificial Intelligence and Ethics", K Grieman and M Jirotka
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics (APGDA) Steering Committee member - Marina Jirotka
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description Contributing to the Response to the Law Commission and Scottish Law Commissions' third joint consultation paper of automated vehicles.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
 
Description Membership of the expert advisory panel of the Topol Review
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Influenced training of practitioners or researchers
Impact Alan Winfield contributed to the NHS Health Education England review, led by Dr Eric Topol, which led to publication of the final report "Preparing the healthcare workforce to deliver the digital future" - an independent report on behalf of the secretary of state for Health and Social Care, published in February 2019. Alan Winfield was a member of both Robotics & AI and ethics panels.
URL https://www.hee.nhs.uk/our-work/topol-review
 
Description UK All Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics report on Trust, Transparency and Technology.
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Citation in other policy documents
URL https://www.policyconnect.org.uk/appgda/news/trust-transparency-tech-report-launch
 
Description Workshop: shaping the state of machine learning algorithms within law enforcement
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
Impact Helena Webb attended a workshop run as part of a collaboration between the University of Winchester and the Royal United Services Institute on machine learning algorithmic systems used in the legal system in England and Wales. The workshop brought together academics, regulators, policy makers and criminal justice professionals. it had the particular aim to help establish a framework for the regulation of such algorithmic systems. The outcomes of the workshop formed part of a subsequent report https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/data-analytics-and-algorithms-policing-england-and-wales-towards-new
URL https://rusi.org/publication/occasional-papers/data-analytics-and-algorithms-policing-england-and-wa...
 
Description Written response to Consultation on Automated Vehicle Trialling Code of Practice
Geographic Reach National 
Policy Influence Type Contribution to a national consultation/review
URL https://www.gov.uk/government/consultations/automated-vehicle-trialling-code-of-practice-invitation-...
 
Description Amazon Web Services test bed for cloud based research
Amount £7,000,000 (GBP)
Organisation Amazon.com 
Department Amazon Web Services
Sector Private
Country United States
Start 09/2022 
End 08/2024
 
Description BH Studentship
Amount £0 (GBP)
Organisation Capgemini S.E. 
Sector Private
Country France
Start 10/2022 
End 10/2025
 
Description Prehension Blooms 
Organisation Neon Dance
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Private 
PI Contribution Neon Dance is an internationally renowned company that embraces a diverse and digital population; a place where artist, partners and people can engage in experiences that are experimental and original, yet accessible to all. Adrienne Hart established Neon Dance in 2004 with the aim of connecting audiences with rigorous artists and original thinkers. As Artistic Director, she cultivates an altruistic environment that enables risk taking and collaboration to flourish; developing works that explore technologies and design with the body as the central tenet. Following an initial conversation with Hannah Manktelow, Adrienne Hart was connected with Marina Jirotka, Professor of Human Centred Computing and Helena Webb, Senior Researcher at Oxford University. We discovered many shared interests and believe that the proposed project, exploring ideas around loneliness, companionship and belonging incorporating human centered computing and the development of responsible social robots will be strengthened as a result of our working together. Helena Webb and Marina Jirotka will engage with Neon Dance through meetings and workshops to contribute to the iterative development of the piece. From 2020 to 2022 members of the RoboTIPS team had meetings with Neon Dance to discuss the performance piece and co-generate insights. This led to a blog post https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/prehension-blooms-and-robotips and joint participation in two public events. 1) An online discussion session as part of Oxford Torch https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/neon-dance-prehension-blooms and a Brighton Digital Festival discussion panel https://southeastdance.org.uk/read-watch-and-listen/watch-again-prehension-blooms-panel-discussion/
Collaborator Contribution The discussions with Neon Dance have helped the RoboTIPS project focus on interpersonal and interactional issues in relation to human-robot relationships.
Impact The dance piece was first performed in October 2022. From 2020 to 2022 members of the RoboTIPS team had meetings with Neon Dance to discuss the performance piece and co-generate insights. This led to a blog post https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/prehension-blooms-and-robotips and joint participation in two public events. 1) An online discussion session as part of Oxford Torch https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/event/neon-dance-prehension-blooms and a Brighton Digital Festival discussion panel https://southeastdance.org.uk/read-watch-and-listen/watch-again-prehension-blooms-panel-discussion/
Start Year 2020
 
Description Responsible Technology Institute and RoboTIPS International 
Organisation University of Oxford
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution The University of Oxford has begun a new strategic collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS). The collaboration will focus on building a portfolio of new research projects relating to AI, robotics, cyber-physical systems, human-centred computing, and support to the University's new "Lighthouse" Doctoral Scholarships. This new university- industry collaboration is supported by a £7 million gift from AWS to the Mathematical, Physical and Life Sciences Division, and will accelerate advances in AI and Data Science across the entire research portfolio of the University. Marina Jirotka has been given £1 000 000 from the gift. She is using this to establish the foundations for an Institute of Responsible Technology (RTI) and to expand work from the RoboTIPS project on the Ethical Black Box. There are very close synergies across the collaboration. Marina Jirotka is PI of RoboTIPS and Director of the RTI. Helena Webb is Senior Researcher on RoboTIPS and also Research Lead of the RTI. The flagship project of the RTI is RoboTIPS International, which takes the concept of the Ethical Black Box for social robots and explores the social, policy and legal issues around its use in different international contexts. The RoboTIPS team - in particular Prof Jirotka and Helena Webb - are assisting with the direction of this work. We also plan to hold shared engagement and dissemination activities.
Collaborator Contribution Members of the RTI and RoboTIPS International teams regularly feed back updates on their activities to the RoboTIPS team and discussions are held to identify cross project synergies. We also plan to hold shared engagement and dissemination activities.
Impact Various meetings and discussions to aid the development of both projects.
Start Year 2020
 
Description RoboTIPS/Purrble crossover study 
Organisation King's College London
Country United Kingdom 
Sector Academic/University 
PI Contribution This is a research collaboration between two projects: • RoboTIPS: Developing Responsible Robots for the Digital Economy (University of Oxford in collaboration with Bristol Robotics Lab) • Smart Companion Robotic Toys for Adolescent Mental Health (King's College London). The first project examines conceptual issues of trust and responsible innovation by developing an understanding of how designers and developers currently practise notions of responsibility in their work. Its empirical work focuses on robots designed to operate in human environments and interact with humans. The second explores the use of socially-assistive robots to provide emotion-regulatory support to neuro-typical young people. This addresses an unexplored component in mental health treatments where empowering users to develop their own competencies beyond in-person therapeutic sessions is crucial. The two projects are collaborating in a crossover study due to our shared interest in Responsible innovation (RI). The crossover will bring an RI perspective to a smart toy. The Purrble is a robot that has been designed to look like a small cuddly toy and support emotion regulation. This collaborative project will ask RI experts about the Purrble through individual interviews asking them to reflect on the benefits and risks of Purrble being incorporated into therapeutic settings, and focus group-style workshops to understand RI requirements for the Purrble. The study results will inform future research on embedding RI into design processes for robots early on. RoboTIPS team members are recruiting experts in RI and the ethics of design to elicit their perspectives on the the Purrble robot. We are conducting interview studies and co design workshops for the purposes of a deep dive into these issues, to inform the ongoing development of both projects.
Collaborator Contribution Our partners are providing access to the Purrble robot and helping us with the design of a study to elicit the perspectives of RI experts on it.
Impact Data collection about to commence
Start Year 2020
 
Description "Robot Accident Investigation"Alan Winfield invited talk at the ICRA 2020 workshop Robot Dystopias 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Alan Winfield was invited to give an online talk at a workshop of the 2020 ICRA conference. The theme of the workshop was 'Against Robot Dystopias' and its aims were to:

1. To identify ethical, legal and societal issues within robotics and automation.
2. To introduce and discuss technical methods for addressing these issues.

In this talk, Alan spoke about the RoboTIPS project and work on the Ethical Black Box and robot accident investigations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://against-20.github.io
 
Description APGDA: AI and ethics roundtable - Prof Marina Jirotka 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact Prof. Marina Jirotka was invited as a speaker in a panel debate as part of a virtual evidence sessions which focusses on uncovering key current developments in the UK on creating ethical AI regulation, as well as looking at what is happening in other jurisdictions, and lastly examining any big issues around ethics in the supply chain.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.policyconnect.org.uk/events/appg-data-analytics-inquiry-evidence-session-2
 
Description Ada Lovelace Day schools talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Helena Webb was invited to give an online talk for Ada Lovelace Day in October 2020. She spoke to an audience of secondary school students in the south east area. She spoke about her work and job role, and answered their questions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Alan Winfield Plenary presentation at RoboPhilosophy conference 2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Alan Winfield was invited to give an plenary presentation at the online RoboPhilosophy 2020 conference in August 2020. His talk "Why did you just do that?" introduced a new approach to explainability for social robots
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://conferences.au.dk/robo-philosophy/aarhus2020/events/why-did-you-just-do-that-explainability-...
 
Description All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics (APGDA) Policy Connect event "The Open Standard" 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact .
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics (APGDA) Policy Connect event 2: Regulating Robots 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact .
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description All-Party Parliamentary Group on Data Analytics (APGDA) Roundtable: How can we embed ethics, trust and transparency in social robots 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact .
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Anderston school discussion on COP 26 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact I was invited to discuss, and answer questions on, the energy costs of technology with a group of primary school children at Anderston school in Glasgow on 12 November 2021. This online discussion was part of their class work related to COP 26.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description BRL Conference 2021 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Anouk presented her work at the BRL Conference that took place on 30 June 2021. This conference was organised by the Bristol Robotics Laboratory. It was an online event that attracted mainly robotics researchers in the UK.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation - invited talk by Marina Jirotka 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka was invited to give a talk at the newly established Bavarian Research Institute for Digital Transformation. She gave a presentation about RoboTIPS and joined in discussion about the meaning of responsibility in robotics.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Blogpost for Bavarian Research Group for Digital Transformation (BIDT) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka wrote a blog post for the website of the Bavarian Research Group for Digital Transformation (BIDT)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.bidt.digital/en/blog-responsible-robotics/
 
Description Bristol Women in Robotics twitter feed - in charge for a day 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Anouk was invited to take over the Bristol Women in Robotics twitter account to celebrate International Women in Engineering day. She shared several tweets to indicate what a typical workday looks like for her, explaining the work she does for the RoboTIPS project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Bristows public panel debate 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I was invited as a panelist for a live panel debate organised by Bristows, and chaired by Dame Joan Bakewell. The event was entitled "Trust me, I am an algorithm." Is AI the future of healthcare?, Bristows Life Science summit 2021, on 9 December 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.bristows.com/news/trust-me-i-am-an-algorithm-is-ai-the-future-of-healthcare/
 
Description Capgemini Article 
Form Of Engagement Activity A magazine, newsletter or online publication
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka took part in a discussion with Capgemini speaking about innovating responsible and establishing trust in autonomous systems. This is available to view on the web, and may be available as a print copy in the future. Its target is C-level executives in Capgemini's global organisations in all sectors.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.capgemini.com/research/conversations-for-tomorrow/conversations-for-tomorrow-3/discussio...
 
Description Ethics of AI panel at the Oxford UIDP summit 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka was a guest speaker on a panel discussing AI ethics. This was a special panel session run at the 2019 Oxford UIDP summit, which brought together high level staff in industry, academia and policy. As part of the panel she spoke about the RoboTIPS project and opportunities for university-industry-policy collaboration in responsible innovation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://uidp.org/event/oxford_uidp_summit/
 
Description Human Machine Collaboration AI Botics Webinar 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact As part of the Oxford-Singapore Human-Machine collaboration, the AI Botics Global conference on ethics and responsibility in AI and robotics included a pre-recorded webinar involving Marina Jirotka and Helena Webb. They engaged in discussion around core RoboTIPS project themes, including the meaning of responsibility and the Ethical Black Box as a safety mechanism to enhance trust in social robots. This was broadcast on 6th August and also made available for repeated viewings online.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://tcc.cloud.tencent.com/c/aibotics.tech/webinar
 
Description If Oxford Science and Ideas festival 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Helena Webb participated in the IF Oxford Science and Ideas festival. She joined other members of the Human Centred Computing group to run a stand in a central Oxford shopping centre. She spent the afternoon telling interested members of the public about the UnBias and RoboTIPS projects and listening to their views on the responsible development of technologies.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Imagining Posthuman Care - Panel discussion on the impact of social robotics on care. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Anouk was invited by researchers of the AHRC-funded project 'Imagining posthuman care'. She joined a screening of the documentary 'Alice cares' with two other panel members and people of the general public at the Everyman in Leeds. After that, she and the two other panel members discussed the documentary and the wider ethical concerns of social robots in care. She also answered questions coming from members of the general public that joined the screening.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Industry Forum roundtable on 'Restoring trust in digital technology' 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka was invited to participate in panel discussion to give her views on restoring trust in digital technologies. This was an invitation only event organised by the Industry Forum, a high profile group that seeks to promotes constructive dialogue between public policy makers, industry operating in the UK, and leading commentators. Details of the panel event can be read here http://www.industry-forum.org/event/restoring-trust-in-digital-tech/. Marina introduced ideas about the what it means to trust digital systems and the capacity for responsibility practices that can foster trust. This lead to discussion amongst those present about what kinds of practices can be put in place at the levels of design and policy.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL http://www.industry-forum.org/event/restoring-trust-in-digital-tech/
 
Description Invited Keynote by Marina Jirotka - ICT4S conference 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka was invited to give a keynote presentation at the online ICT4S conference in June 2020. The conference relates to sustainability in ICT; Marina spoke about the potential for an environmentally responsible approach to AI and robotics research.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.ict4s.org
 
Description Invited public talk and panel by Alan Winfield - Oxford Brookes' AI Festival 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof. Alan Winfield gave a talk entitled "How to make an ethical robot, and why we probably shouldn't" at Oxford Brookes' AI Festival (online) on 21 February 2023
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2023
URL https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/2023/02/festival-of-ai
 
Description Invited public talk by Alan Winfield - AI Ethics from Theory to Practice 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof. Alan Winfield gave a presentation on "The Ethical Roboticist, from principles to practice", at AI Ethics from Theory to Practice, Collective Intelligence UK, Bristol, 7 July 2022
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/ai-ethics-from-theory-to-practice-tickets-363495854887
 
Description Invited public talk by Alan Winfield - Devonshire Association President's Symposium 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Prof. Alan Winfield gave a talk on "A long-term vision for truly sustainable Robotics and Artificial Intelligence", at Devonshire Association President's Symposium, Taunton, 14 May 2022
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://devonassoc.org.uk/presidents-symposium-may-2022/
 
Description Invited public talk by Alan Winfield - Turing Institute (webinar) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In this online talk, Alan Winfield presented the "IEEE 7001-2021, A new standard on Transparency of Autonomous Systems", in the webinar "Towards transparent and explainable AI: The current standardisation landscape, AI Standards Hub", Turing Institute (online), 8 Dec 2022
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://aistandardshub.org/events/towards-transparent-and-explainable-ai-the-current-standardisation...
 
Description Invited talk at AI@Oxford, September 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Alan Winfield gave a short (10 minute) invited talk entitled 'What could possibly go wrong? Why we need Robot Accident Investigations', presenting the RoboTIPS project, on Tuesday 17 September 2019 at AI@Oxford (billed as Oxford's first major international conference on Artificial Intelligence).
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL http://alanwinfield.blogspot.com/2019/09/whats-worst-that-could-happen-why-we.html
 
Description Invited talk at BSI conference the Digital World: Artificial Intelligence 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I gave an invited talk for the British Standards Institute conference, the Digital World: Artificial Intelligence, on 27 May 2021. My talk was entitled Ethics is the new Quality, and the conference was attended by ~1100 professionals.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.bsigroup.com/en-GB/our-services/events/webinars/2021/the-digital-world-artificial-intell...
 
Description Invited talk by Marina Jirotka at the UKRI Node on Governance and Responsibility of Trusted Autonomous Systems 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact During this talk Marina presented her research on responsible robotics, focusing on what could possibly go wrong with robots. She discussed the RoboTIPS project which is entwining socio-legal and technical responses in its development of an ethical black box (EBB). She pointed out that that, crucially, it is not the data alone which is to be relied on in robot accident investigations. Indeed, the work of investigators should draw on the important social aspects of investigation surrounding the data. The talk was attended by some of the members of the new UKRI Node on Governance and Responsibility of Trusted Autonomous Systems and some biomedical AI postgraduate students
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Invited talk by Marina Jirotka at the UKRI Trustworthy Autonomous System All Hands Meeting 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka gave an invited talk entitled 'Responsibility and trust in autonomous systems', in the workshop on "Responsibility in Autonomous Systems" held on 15 September 2021 organised in the framework of the TAS All Hands Meeting. In her presentation, Marina talked about: Responsible Research and Innovation, Trust and Responsibility, 'No Blame Culture', RoboTIPS project, accident investigation, governance and standards
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Invited talk by Pericle Salvini at ACI2022 Workshop on 'Designing for Trust Autonomous Animal-Centric Robotic & AI Systems' 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Pericle Salvini & Marina Jirotka presented their work on 'Animals and Robots. Why should we (and animals) care?' in front a mixed group of auditors, including artists, researchers and scientists.
The objective of this presentation was to offer some reflections - based on evidence - of how the life of animals and humans could change (for the worse) as a consequence of the replacement of animals with artificial pets. This sparked questions and discussion afterwards and the need to include animals among the stakeholders in the design, development and deployment of new technologies.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://alanchamberlain23.wixsite.com/aciai/schedule
 
Description Invited talk by Pericle Salvini at HRI 2021 Workshop: The Road to successful HRI: AI, Trust and ethicS - TRAITS 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact There were about 30 participants mainly from the field of human-robot interaction. During the talk I presented my research on safety issues concerning mobile service robots and event data recorders for human-robot interaction.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://sites.google.com/view/traits-hri
 
Description Invited talk for British Computer Society, Oxfordshire branch 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I was invited to speak for the British Computer Society (BCS) Oxfordshire branch on 4 November 2021. My online talk was entitled 'Robot Accident Investigation'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://oxon.bcs.org/2022/02/17/event-summary-robot-accident-investigation/
 
Description Invited talk for Chartered Quality Institute 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact I gave an online invited talk 'Ethics is the new Quality' for the Avon Branch of the Chartered Quality Institute (CQI) Avon branch, on 10 November 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.quality.org/event/branch/cqi-avon-branch-ethics-new-quality
 
Description Joint talk at event 'The Future of Care: how can robots and autonomous systems change frontline healthcare', January 2020. 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka and Alan Winfield gave a joint presentation entitled 'Towards Responsible Robotics in Healthcare' at the workshop on The Future of Care, organised by the West of England Academic Health Science Network, held in Bristol on 30 January 2020. The talk defined responsible robotics and outlined the RoboTIPS project, within the context of robotics for assisted living.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.weahsn.net/event/robotics/
 
Description Junior Research Fellows lecture by Keri Grieman - Kellogg College 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Undergraduate students
Results and Impact Dr Keri Griema gave a lecture on 'The Trouble with Social Robots'
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Keynote lecture by Keri Grieman - The Bonavero Institute of Human Rights 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Dr Keri Grieman gave a keynot lecture on 'Human-centric concerns for social robotics'.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Marina Jirotka invited panel member at Industry Forum discussion 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact The independent organisation for policy debate, the Industry Forum, ran an online event to discuss opportunities and challenges for the development of the digital environment, with regard to education, work, manufacturing logistics etc. Marina Jirotka was an invited expert panellist on the session.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL http://www.industry-forum.org/event/shaping-our-digital-future/
 
Description Marina Jirotka: St Cross College talk 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka gave a presentation at St Cross College Oxford about the aims and plans for the RoboTIPS study.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Mentoring in FAccT Doctoral Consortium 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Helena Webb was invited to be a mentor in the 2021 FAccT conference Doctoral Consortium. This was an online event attended by PG researchers from across the world interested in issues around ethics and responsibility in Machine Learning. As one of the mentors Helena engaged in discussion with attendees on key questions arising in their research - such as how to measure fairness and how to engage with stakeholders - as well providing advice on the doctoral process.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://facctconference.org/2021/callfordc.html
 
Description OPEN Policy Engagement Showcase 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact RoboTIPS was delighted to welcome Lord Tim Clement-Jones, Professor Alan Winfield, and the head of the project, Professor Marina Jirotka, to speak on policy engagement in ethical innovation. The event was attended both in person and online, with thoughtful and informed questions provided by both fora. The event was an excellent opportunity to discuss and connect over challenges and opportunities in the research-and-policy world, with fascinating insights as to the nature of policymaking for fast-moving technologies.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.rti.ox.ac.uk/2022/09/23/478/
 
Description Online roundtable on Responsible Robotics 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Roundtable with Prof Marina Jirotka, Dr Helena Webb and Carolyn Ten Holter from Oxford University and Mr Oliver Tian from Asia Pacific Assistive Robotics Association / International Alliance of Robotics Association to tease out the concepts, contexts and appropriate solutions.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eiQKB2hlB-0
 
Description Online roundtable on Responsible Technology in Robotics and Space 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Roundtable discusson between Prof Marina Jirotka, Dr Helena Webb, Dr Lars Kunze and Dr Pericle Salvini, University of Oxford; Fatema Ali Al Hajri, Yah Sat; Andrew Rush, Redwire; Peter Marquez, AWS; Kalyan Kumar, HCL Technologies; Arfan Chaudhry, UK Space Agency; and Dr Greg Autry, Thunderbird / Arizona State University. Videos were later put on youtube and viewed by over 100 times.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZwPAdC7Rj4
 
Description Organisation of a workshop at HRI 2021 - The road to successful HRI: trust, AI and ethics (TRAITS) 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact Anouk co-organised a half-day workshop at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interaction 2021. This workshop discussed aspects of trust, AI and ethics that need to be considered to ensure successful human-robot interactions. Participants consisted of postgraduate students, a few undergraduate students and mainly academic researchers in the field of HRI, as well as some participants who are employed by social robotics companies. As it was very successful, she co-organised a new full-day workshop at the International Conference on Human-Robot Interactions in 2022, diving deeper into the issues discussed in the first edition.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://sites.google.com/view/traits-hri-2022/home
 
Description Oxford Ethics and AI seminar on Responsible Research and Publication 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Helena Webb was invited to be a speaker in an online seminar organised by the Institute for Ethics in AI at Oxford. She spoke about the value of viewing responsibility as a forward looking and collective activity, and how this can foster better outcomes in AI research. The seminar was hosted live on You Tube with viewers able to submit questions and comments. It also remains on You Tube for viewing.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Flr1wgCn7tk&list=PLbPH9ZxV_xgypPWDp9i8oKhM9SYJiKTjf&index=10&ab_chan...
 
Description Participation in workshop on The politics of Autonomous Vehicles, December 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka, Alan Winfield and Helena Webb participated in a workshop organised by ESRC project Driverless Futures? on The politics of Autonomous Vehicles, held at the Royal Academy of Engineering and UCL, 16-17 December 2019. During the workshop Marina Jirotka gave a presentation entitled 'Towards Responsible Innovation in Autonomous Vehicles', in which the aims of RoboTIPS were outlined.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://driverless-futures.com/events/the-politics-of-autonomous-vehicles/
 
Description Poster for AWS research presentation by Keri Grieman 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Dr Keri Grieman presented a poster on the Ethical Black Box and RoboTIPS project during the event organised by the Responsible Technology Institute to visitors from the Amazon Web Services
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Presentation at ICTF conference Oxford - Marina Jirotka 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact .
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
URL https://www.ictf.ox.ac.uk/event/ictf22
 
Description RAS Festival session 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This was a live and interactive session for members of the public to demo the use of the ethical black box in an accident investigation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Responsible Innovation and Ethics 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Anouk van Maris and Alan Winfield organised two half-day workshop sessions for the new cohort of PhD students of the FARSCOPE CDT. During this workshop they talked about responsible innovation and introduced their work on the RoboTIPS project. It resulted in questions from the students, and one student decided to pursue her PhD topic in a related area following this workshop.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Responsible Innovation in ICT 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Helena Webb attended a one day workshop on the role of Responsible Innovation in ICT held as part of the CHI 2019 conference. As part of the workshop she described the work of the RoboTIPS project and joined in discussions about embedding responsibility into processes of design and development. The workshop was attended by a number of professional practitioners in design and development as well as researchers and research students. It led to ongoing discussions and ideas for future collaborations.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Responsible Innovation panel AI@Oxford conference 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Industry/Business
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka was invited to talk on an expert panel at the AI@Oxford conference 2019. The panel discussed opportunities to embed responsible innovation into the development of AI supported technologies. Marina Jirotka spoke about the RoboTIPS project as an instance of a project that seeks to foster responsibility in technology across phases of design, development and implementation.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://innovation.ox.ac.uk/innovation-news/events/aioxford-conference/conference-agenda/
 
Description RoboTIPS project website 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact We have set up a project website to provide accessible information about the study for all interested audiences. This will be updated regularly.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019,2020
URL https://www.robotips.co.uk/
 
Description RoboTIPS twitter account 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This is the project Twitter account which is updated regularly by the team members. It is used to inform the general public on impacts and outputs of the project.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021,2022
URL https://twitter.com/robotips4
 
Description RoboTips: The ethical black box (EBB) 
Form Of Engagement Activity A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact The All Party Parliamentary Group for Data Analytics (APGDA) and the RoboTips team are hosted a roundtable to discuss the implementation of the ethical black box (EBB) and the need for this technology within social robots.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
 
Description Schools outreach: March2020 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Regional
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Helena Webb participated in a schools outreach session organised by St Anne's College at the University of Oxford. The session brought over 60 school students (aged 10-11 years old) from a school in South London to spend the day in Oxford. The school was from an economically disadvantaged area and the students were from backgrounds with little familial experience of Oxbridge. Helena gave a taster session to two groups of 15 students to introduce them to her work.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description Should all robots have an ethical black box?, a podcast with OxfordSparks 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Media (as a channel to the public)
Results and Impact Helena Webb working with the Oxford Sparks, Oxford's digital Public Engagement with Research team to produce a podcast for their website. The podcast was an accident senario on the ethical black box.
You can view this here: www.oxfordsparks.ox.ac.uk/podcasts/should-all-robots-have-an-ethical-black-box/
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL http://www.oxfordsparks.ox.ac.uk/
 
Description Speaker at EURA workskop on Regulating Uncertainty 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact I gave an invited talk entitled 'AI Accident Investigation' at the EURA Conference 2021 - on REGULATING UNCERTAINTY on 9 April 2021.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021
URL https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GjCMRu86IRU&t=4917s
 
Description Talk at Robosoft: Software Engineering for Robotics, RAEng, London, November 2019 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact Alan Winfield gave an invited talk entitled 'Ethical Standards in robotics and AI: Responsible Robotics' at the 2 day meeting RoboSoft: Software Engineering for Robotics, organised by the University of York and hosted at the Royal Academy of Engineering. The talk presented RoboTIPS and the ethical black box; Autonomous Vehicles were also used as an illustrative example.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
URL https://www.cs.york.ac.uk/robostar/robosoft/
 
Description UK Winter School on Cyber Security 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact Marina Jirotka was invited to give a presentation about the RoboTIPS study at this winter school for doctoral researchers.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
 
Description University of Oxford TORCH blog post on RoboTIPS and Neon Dance collaboration 
Form Of Engagement Activity Engagement focused website, blog or social media channel
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Helena Webb prepared a blog post with collaborator Adrienne Hart (Neon Dance) to discuss synergies between the RoboTIPS project and Adrienne's dance piece, Prehension Blooms. This was posted on the website of TORCH the Oxford research centre for the humanities and the funder of our collaboration. The post was also reposted on Helena's own research group blog.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2020
URL https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/article/prehension-blooms-and-robotips
 
Description University of Oxford student open day 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an open day or visit at my research institution
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Schools
Results and Impact Helena Webb attended an open day held by the Department of Computer Science at Oxford. She participated in an open session during which we spoke to prospective students and their parents about working and studying at Oxford, and described the RoboTIPS study as an example of work that is conducted here.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2019
 
Description Workshop in Nottingham 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Other audiences
Results and Impact 16 December 2022
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2022
 
Description Workshop on Responsible Innovation and Ethics 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach Local
Primary Audience Postgraduate students
Results and Impact RoboTIPS team member Anouk Van Maris led a 2-half-day workshop on responsible innovation and ethics for the new cohort of PhD students of the FARCOPE CDT at the University of Bristol and the University of West of England. It included a focus on the RoboTIPS project and the work being performed in this project. The materials for this workshop were provided by RoboTIPS team member Alan Winfield.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2021