Responsible AI for Long-term Trustworthy Autonomous Systems (RAILS): Integrating Responsible AI and Socio-legal Governance
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Oxford
Department Name: Engineering Science
Abstract
Society is seeing enormous growth in the development and implementation of autonomous systems, which can offer significant benefits to citizens, communities, and businesses. The potential for improvements in societal wellbeing is substantial. However, this positive potential is balanced by a similar potential for societal harm through contingent effects such as the environmental footprint of autonomous systems, systemic disadvantage for some socio-economic groups, and entrenchment of digital divides. The rollout of autonomous systems must therefore be addressed with responsibilities to society in mind. This must include engaging in dialogue with society and with those affected, trying to anticipate challenges before they occur, and responding to them.
One such anticipated challenge is the effect of change on autonomous systems. Autonomous systems are not designed to be deployed in conditions of perfect stasis, as they are unlikely to encounter such conditions in real-world environments. They are frequently designed for changing environments, like public roads, and may also be designed to change themselves over time, for instance by means of learning capabilities. Not only that, but these changes in deployed systems and in their operating conditions are also likely to take place against a shifting contextual background of societal alteration (e.g. other technologies, 'black swan' events, or simply the day-to-day operation of communities). The effects of such change, on the systems themselves, on the environments within which they are operating, and on the humans with which they engage, must be considered as part of a responsible innovation approach.
The RAILS project brings together a team from UCL and the Universities of York, Leeds and Oxford, from multiple disciplines, with the aim of engaging with the challenges associated with the long-term operation of autonomous systems and the effects of change on these systems. In particular, we will explore how the notion of responsibility is affected by
(i) open-ended dynamic environments - situations that change over time, and
(ii) lifelong-learning systems - i.e. systems that are designed to adapt themselves to their circumstances and 'learn' over time.
The RAILS project will focus on such independent long-term autonomous systems in different applications. These will include (i) autonomous vehicles and (ii) autonomous robot systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). RAILS will look at social and legal contexts, as well as technical requirements, in order to assess whether and how these systems can be designed, developed, and operated in a way that they are responsible, accountable, and trustworthy.
The overall aim of the RAILS project is to bring together responsible development principles with governance mechanisms and technical understanding to create new understandings of how autonomous systems can adapt to change, how they can be deployed in a responsible and trustworthy way, and how such deployment can be framed by governance to ensure accountability and flexibility.
One such anticipated challenge is the effect of change on autonomous systems. Autonomous systems are not designed to be deployed in conditions of perfect stasis, as they are unlikely to encounter such conditions in real-world environments. They are frequently designed for changing environments, like public roads, and may also be designed to change themselves over time, for instance by means of learning capabilities. Not only that, but these changes in deployed systems and in their operating conditions are also likely to take place against a shifting contextual background of societal alteration (e.g. other technologies, 'black swan' events, or simply the day-to-day operation of communities). The effects of such change, on the systems themselves, on the environments within which they are operating, and on the humans with which they engage, must be considered as part of a responsible innovation approach.
The RAILS project brings together a team from UCL and the Universities of York, Leeds and Oxford, from multiple disciplines, with the aim of engaging with the challenges associated with the long-term operation of autonomous systems and the effects of change on these systems. In particular, we will explore how the notion of responsibility is affected by
(i) open-ended dynamic environments - situations that change over time, and
(ii) lifelong-learning systems - i.e. systems that are designed to adapt themselves to their circumstances and 'learn' over time.
The RAILS project will focus on such independent long-term autonomous systems in different applications. These will include (i) autonomous vehicles and (ii) autonomous robot systems such as unmanned aerial vehicles (drones). RAILS will look at social and legal contexts, as well as technical requirements, in order to assess whether and how these systems can be designed, developed, and operated in a way that they are responsible, accountable, and trustworthy.
The overall aim of the RAILS project is to bring together responsible development principles with governance mechanisms and technical understanding to create new understandings of how autonomous systems can adapt to change, how they can be deployed in a responsible and trustworthy way, and how such deployment can be framed by governance to ensure accountability and flexibility.
Organisations
- University of Oxford (Lead Research Organisation)
- Society for Computers and Law (Project Partner)
- TRL Ltd (Transport Research Laboratory) (Project Partner)
- Autonomous Drivers Alliance (Project Partner)
- Amazon Web Services (Not UK) (Project Partner)
- Addleshaw Goddard LLP (Project Partner)
- Imperium Drive (Project Partner)
- Oxbotica Ltd (Project Partner)
Publications
Drayson G
(2023)
CC-SGG: Corner Case Scenario Generation using Learned Scene Graphs
Gadd M
(2024)
OORD : The Oxford Offroad Radar Dataset
in IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems
Housley W
(2023)
The SAGE Handbook of Digital Society
Howard R.
(2023)
Evaluating Temporal Observation-Based Causal Discovery Techniques Applied to Road Driver Behaviour
in Proceedings of Machine Learning Research
| Description | In RAILS, we have studied the challenges of autonomous systems in long-term scenarios using the following research questions across multiple contexts: C1: Deploying autonomous systems in open-ended environments: How should a system act responsibly in previously unknown circumstances (corner cases)? How to assure and verify safe operation of systems in conditions that are unknown and unpredictable before deployment? Who is responsible/ accountable for a system's behaviour? C2: Autonomous systems that can adapt and change their own behaviour during deployment: When and how should a system update its behaviour? How can we guarantee the system's safe operation after an update? Who approves such an update and who is responsible for the system's new behaviour (e.g., manufacturer, operator, or user)? To address the challenges above, we have designed and developed a Responsible AI (RAI) Index that evaluated AI systems/agents in relation to their robustness, transparency, and sustainability. The RAI Index has been realised and implemented within a cloud-based simulation framework to test and evaluate autonomous systems in open-world dynamic environments. In RAILS, the framework will be used in the CARLA Responsible AI Challenge (https://carla-rai-challenge.github.io/) to assess the robustness and environmental sustainability (carbon emissions) of the autonomous transport systems. |
| Exploitation Route | The framework and metrics might be used by others who develop, approve and/or regulate autonomous transport systems. |
| Sectors | Transport |
| URL | https://carla-rai-challenge.github.io/ |
| Description | The RAILS Responsibility project sought to develop better understandings of how autonomous systems can handle change, and how this maps to responsibility. It aimed to investigate questions such as: how can you create a safety or assurance case for an autonomous system? what is a 'meaningful' change that would require a new safety case? how might internal and external events trigger the need for a new case, and how can responsibility for this be development? During the course of its life the project developed all-hands workshops with its partners, who included industry and commercial organisations, policymakers, developers and others. These workshops sought to foster knowledge-exchange and enrich the research project with a greater awareness of challenges in the governance space, as well as the technical challenges of lifelong learning in autonomous systems. It also engaged with the other Responsibility projects within the TAS programme, culminating in a cross-project workshop in Edinburgh in summer 2023 that led to a collective statement from all four projects about our understanding of what 'responsibility' meant for 'responsible AI'. The Edinburgh Declaration, as we termed it, has now had hundreds of views on Medium (https://medium.com/@svallor_10030/edinburgh-declaration-on-responsibility-for-responsible-ai-1a98ed2e328b), and we have used it as a foundational element in ongoing work for the RAI UK Hub. |
| First Year Of Impact | 2023 |
| Sector | Transport,Other |
| Impact Types | Societal Policy & public services |
| Description | A New National Purpose: The UK's Opportunity to Lead in Next-Wave Robotics (Tony Blair Institute) |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://institute.global/insights/tech-and-digitalisation/a-new-national-purpose-the-uks-opportunity... |
| 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 | CDEI report on Responsible Innovation in Self-Driving Vehicles |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/responsible-innovation-in-self-driving-vehicles |
| Description | Contributions to the Law Commission review on self-driving vehicles |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
| URL | https://www.lawcom.gov.uk/legal-reforms-to-allow-safe-introduction-of-automated-vehicles-announced/ |
| Description | Written and oral evidence to the UK Commons Transport Select Committee |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Policy Influence Type | Participation in a guidance/advisory committee |
| URL | https://driverless-futures.com/2022/12/21/evidence-to-the-transport-select-committee/ |
| Description | Application of System Theoretic Process Analysis to understand safety requirements for a domestic robot (EPSCR iCASE) |
| Amount | £34,968 (GBP) |
| Funding ID | ICASE voucher ref 230058 |
| Organisation | Dyson |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2023 |
| End | 09/2027 |
| Description | Effective Collaborative Robot Learning for Varying Manipulation Tasks and Environmental Contexts (AIMS CDT) |
| Amount | £60,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | Toshiba Research Europe Ltd |
| Sector | Private |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 09/2023 |
| End | 09/2027 |
| Description | PACER - RAI UK Enterprise Fellowship |
| Amount | £100,000 (GBP) |
| Organisation | United Kingdom Research and Innovation |
| Sector | Public |
| Country | United Kingdom |
| Start | 03/2025 |
| End | 03/2026 |
| Title | OORD: The Oxford Offroad Radar Dataset |
| Description | There is a growing academic interest as well as commercial exploitation of millimetre-wave scanning radar for autonomous vehicle localisation and scene understanding. Although several datasets to support this research area have been released, they are primarily focused on urban or semi-urban environments. Nevertheless, rugged offroad deployments are important application areas which also present unique challenges and opportunities for this sensor technology. Therefore, the Oxford Offroad Radar Dataset (OORD) presents data collected in the rugged Scottish highlands in extreme weather. The radar data we offer to the community are accompanied by GPS/INS reference - to further stimulate research in radar place recognition. In total we release over 90 GiB of radar scans as well as GPS and IMU readings by driving a diverse set of four routes over 11 forays, totalling approximately 154 km of rugged driving. This is an area increasingly explored in literature, and we therefore present and release examples of recent open-sourced radar place recognition systems and their performance on our dataset. This includes a learned neural network, the weights of which we also release. The data and tools are made freely available to the community at oxford-robotics-institute.github.io/oord-dataset |
| Type Of Material | Database/Collection of data |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Provided To Others? | Yes |
| Impact | Radar data has been recognised by company and will be explored during planned collaboration. |
| URL | https://oxford-robotics-institute.github.io/oord-dataset/ |
| Title | AI Driving Simulator. |
| Description | In the context of RAILS, we developed a physical driving simulator for demonstrating our research on automated commentary driving and to conduct user studies. This driving simulator has been showcased at academic (TAS all-hands-meeting) and outreach events (Goodwood) - see Engagement |
| Type Of Technology | Physical Model/Kit |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Impact | This demonstrator attracted interest at academic and outreach events which resulted in new connections and collaboration on a joint research proposal (under review). |
| Title | CARLA RAI Autonomous Driving challenge 2024 |
| Description | The CARLA RAI Autonomous Driving challenge requires that agents navigate predefined routes with various real-world traffic scenarios. Agents, initialized at a designated starting point, are directed to drive to a specified destination using route information presented in GPS-style coordinates or route instructions. The primary objective of the CARLA RAI AD leaderboard is to assess how robust the agents are to different challenging naturally occuring traffic conditions, how much they impact environmental sustainability, and whether transparency/interpretability measures were implemented. |
| Type Of Technology | Webtool/Application |
| Year Produced | 2024 |
| Impact | Through an experiment, we showed how indicators composed in S-RAF were developed, and we tested these indicators on benchmark AD agents in CARLA simulator. We saw improvements in robustness over time (from 2020 to 2022), while the amount of CO2 emissions has increased as the models got sophisticated over the years. |
| URL | https://carla-rai-challenge.github.io/ |
| Title | RoAD Recorder |
| Description | The software has originally been developed in the TAS RoAD project. IN RAILS the software has been maintained and extended. The RoAD Recorder is about Responsible AV Data - ethical, legal, and societal challenges of using data from autonomous vehicles. In the event of an accident or a 'near miss', a vehicle should log data to its Event Data Recorder (EDR). The purpose of this project is to provide such data to explore its usefulness and inform discussion. This is being done with the use of simulators such as CARLA. |
| Type Of Technology | Software |
| Year Produced | 2022 |
| Open Source License? | Yes |
| Impact | The software has been used in two demonstrations using a physical driving simulator at the Goodwood Festival of Speed and the TAS All-hands-meeting. |
| URL | https://github.com/cognitive-robots/road-recorder |
| Description | AAAI 2024 Fall Symposium on AI Trustworthiness and Risk Assessment for Challenged Contexts |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze gave a presentation on explainable and responsible autonomy. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://sites.google.com/view/aaai-atracc/home |
| Description | AI Festival panel |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Panel entitled "Closing the gap" as part of AI Festival at Brookes University - topic of panel was women in AI. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.brookes.ac.uk/about-brookes/events/2023/02/festival-of-ai |
| 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 | Alan Turing Workshop on Human-Centric Artificial and Computational Intelligence and Applications. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Human-Centered artificial/computational intelligence (HCAI/CI) is an emerging discipline intent on creating AI/CI systems that amplify and augment rather than displace human abilities. Instead, HCAI/CI seeks to preserve human control in a way that ensures AI meets our needs while also operating in a reliable, robust, and transparent manner, delivering equitable outcomes, and respecting privacy. This workshop is designed to bring key data scientists and AI experts from both academia and industry to sharing up to date research and innovation developments themed on HCAI/CI, but also help identify the key challenges in stakeholders. We anticipate this workshop playing as the springboard to explore potential collaboration between academics and with industrial stakeholders. It will take place as part of the outreach activities of the Alan Turing Institute and the Institute for Data Science and Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Exeter (partnering with the University of Oxford and the University of Birmingham). Both institutes are actively developing and fostering a culture of effective interactions for promoting data science and AI for addressing global challenges across disciplines. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.turing.ac.uk/events/human-centric-artificialcomputational-intelligence-and-applications |
| Description | All-hands workshop |
| 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 | The RAILS project held an all-hands meeting with industry partners in Oxford on 28 June 2023 to discuss autonomous vehicle certification |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Article on drum machines, automation and AI |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A magazine, newsletter or online publication |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Jack Stilgoe was commissioned for a long read in the online magazine Aeon. Focussing on the history of drum machines, the essay investigated automation in music and what lessons could be learned for artificial intelligence in society. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://aeon.co/essays/what-drum-machines-can-teach-us-about-artificial-intelligence |
| Description | BBC news article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Alan Winfield was interviewed for a BBC news article about robots, Elon Musk and driverless cars. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-60154782 |
| Description | BRL Undergraduate Student Visit @ ORI 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Undergraduate students |
| Results and Impact | 25 BSc Robotics students from the Bristol Robotics Lab (UWE Bristol) visited the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) and learnt about ORI's research (incl. RAILS, RobotTIPS). Lars Kunze hosted the visit as a Visiting Fellow at the ORI. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Blogpost for TAS Hub |
| 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 | Outcomes of workshop with project industry partners |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://tas.ac.uk/responsible-ai-lets-make-driving-boring-again/ |
| Description | CARLA RAI Challenge |
| 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 | Within RAILS, we are organising a public challenge to evaluate Responsible AI within Autonomous Driving. We conceptualise Responsible AI (RAI) as the conscious effort in designing, developing, and deploying artificial intelligence (AI) systems in a way that maximises their benefits while minimising their risks. The past few years have been characterised by the rapid development of sophisticated AI models along with rising ethical and societal concerns. This leaves us with the difficult puzzle of optimising for performance without compromising core responsible AI principles such as, transparency, robustness, environmental sustainability, etc. This challenge builds upon the previous Carla Challenges. Added to the existing performance assessment metric, we implement new ways to also assess and quantify different responsible AI concepts such as robustness, sustainabiliy, and transparency. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://carla-rai-challenge.github.io/ |
| Description | CES 2025, Las Vegas (w Capgemini) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze presented work on explainable, safe autonomy and psychological safety. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.capgemini.com/news/events/ces-2025/ |
| Description | Contributions to the Law Commission review on self-driving vehicles |
| 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 Law Commission's final report on self-driving vehicles referred to the two sets of written evidence submitted by Driverless Futures. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://driverless-futures.com/2022/01/27/the-law-commission-and-the-daily-telegraph/ |
| Description | Dagstuhl Seminar (2024) on Safe Autonomous Systems |
| 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 | Dagstuhl Seminar 24151 Methods and Tools for the Engineering and Assurance of Safe Autonomous Systems The seminar brought together researchers and practitioners from different disciplines and application domains. Since, currently, the innovation in autonomous systems is strongly led by industry, a significant number of participants were industrial engineers, who not only shared their best practices but also identified unsolved research problems. In constructive debates, we discussed the results of applying and experimenting with various techniques for engineering safe autonomous systems and identified open research challenges. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.dagstuhl.de/24151 |
| Description | Daily Telegraph article |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Article for the Daily Telegraph newspaper in the UK "Moral maze: can driverless cars ever make human choices?: In matters of life and death on the road, Harry de Quetteville asks if machines could be made to think as we do", 27 Jan 2022. Jack Stilgoe spoke to the journalist to help frame and inform the story. Substantial quoting from the interview. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cars/features/can-driverless-cars-ever-truly-make-human-choices/ |
| Description | Digital Twins Course in Dept. for Continuing Education, Oxford |
| 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 | Lars Kunze is the co-director of the digital twin course at the Department for Continuing Education at Oxford University. Concepts and methods for the responsible use of AI and digital twin technology has been presented by Lars Kunze and it was also part of an course exercise. In 2022, the department offered two courses: one in May and another in November. Each course is taught on 6 days with sessions of 3 hours on each day. Next (upcoming) instance of the course: https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/digital-twins-enhancing-model-based-design-with-ar-vr-and-mr |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.conted.ox.ac.uk/courses/digital-twins-enhancing-model-based-design-with-ar-vr-and-mr |
| Description | Dyson's AI and the Future of Engineering Symposium 2024 |
| 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 | Presentations and discussions the current impacts of AI on technology and its transformative potential for the future of engineering. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.dysoninstitute.ac.uk/research/events/ai-and-future-of-engineering-symposium/ |
| Description | EC JRC Workshop on Explainable AVs |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze was invited by the European Commission JRC to act as an expert for explainable autonomous vehicles. The involvement included a 2-day workshop (29-30 of March 2022) and a written joint report by all experts. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://web.archive.org/web/20220831055511/https://ec.europa.eu/jrc/communities/en/community/humaint... |
| Description | ESWC 2024 - Workshop on Actionable Knowledge Representation and Reasoning for Robots |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze held his invited talk on the topic of Making Robots Explainable and Trustworthy. In his talk, he introduced three current challenges with actionable understanding: i) Mastering everyday tasks, ii) Dealing with change and iii) Explainability and trustworthiness. For each challenge, he focused on aspects for potential solutions, showing what has been done and what still needs to be done. For the first challenge he focused on the understanding of tasks, robots and the environment, for the second challenge the talk focused on lifelong learning (focused on understanding objects) and lastly, he focused on the semantic interpretation of spatio-temporal observations to generate contextualised explanations. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3749/akr3-preface.pdf |
| Description | Evidence contribution to All-party Parliamentary Group Committee on Data Analytics |
| 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 APPG-DA was sourcing evidence for the review of AI governance and our research group contributed |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Government report on responsible innovation for self-driving vehicles |
| 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 | Jack Stilgoe was an external expert author (alongside Prof John McDermid from York) of a report with the UK Government Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation on responsible innovation for self-driving vehicles. This report was timed to inform forthcoming Government legislation on safety and testing. JS did a day of media appearances to coincide with the launch of the report. The report and associated media generated substantial debate among stakeholders. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://driverless-futures.com/2022/08/30/cdei-report-on-responsible-innovation-in-self-driving-vehi... |
| Description | ICRA 2023 Workshop MACTAS |
| 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 | Lars Kunze is the main organiser of the accepted ICRA 2023 Workshop on Multidisciplinary Approaches to Co-Creating Trustworthy Autonomous Systems in London, May 2023 |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://mactasworkshop.github.io/2023/ |
| Description | ICRA 2024 - Forum on Enhancing Service Robots for Future Homes |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk on enhancing service robots for future homes. Resulted in PhD examination on related research topic. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://sites.google.com/view/fma-home-icra24 |
| Description | Institute for Ethical AI - Oxford AI Meetups |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk about explainable and trustworthy autonomous systems. The Institute for Ethical AI are leading a series of Oxford Artificial Intelligence Meetups. They have invited us to do a presentation on RI in AI virtually (RI more generally is an option too). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.meetup.com/Oxford-Artificial-Intelligence-Meetup/ |
| Description | Interviewed for BBC Radio Oxford re women in AI |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Marina Jirotka interviewed for BBC Radio Oxford during AI week re women in AI. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited talk at Safety Critical Systems Symposium 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | provided an invited talk at Safety Critical Systems Symposium 2023 on frameworks for the safety assurance of autonomous systems. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://scsc.uk/sss'23 |
| Description | Invited to participate in the First Summit of Centers for Digital Trust, 30 August - 1 September, Switzerland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Marina Jirotka, Carolyn Ten Holter and Lars Kunze invited to participate in the First Summit of Centers for Digital Trust, 30 August - 1 September, Switzerland (Carolyn and Lars attended) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Invited to participate in the First Summit of Centers for Digital Trust, 30 August - 1 September, Switzerland |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Marina Jirotka, Carolyn Ten Holter and Lars Kunze invited to participate in the First Summit of Centers for Digital Trust, 30 August - 1 September, Switzerland (Carolyn and Lars attended) |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | KNUST Engineering Education Project Visit @ ORI |
| 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 | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | The KNUST Engineering Education Project is one of the 53 Africa Centres of Excellence (ACE) under the World Bank Africa Centres of Excellence for Development Impact Project funded by the Government of Ghana. KEEP seeks to deliver high quality postgraduate courses and conduct and disseminate applied research focused on addressing development challenges related to industrialization, digital development (ICT), energy systems, renewable energy, manufacturing, exploration, and development of the oil and gas industry. The leadership team have approached the Oxford Robotics Institute (ORI) at the University of Oxford to arrange a visit to discuss our collaborations. The visitors will include the KEEP project lead, KEEP team members and the provost of the Engineering Department. The KEEP project lead wrote: "In addition to being the Project Lead for the Africa Center of Excellence, I am also the PI and Scientific Director for the Responsible Artificial Intelligence Lab at College of Engineering KNUST so we will explore areas of collaboration between the College of Engineering, the Responsible AI Lab as well as the College Innovation Center and your Center and other Research Groups at Oxford. We are very open to partnerships and collaborative projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| Description | Marina Jirotka panelist at Creative Machine Oxford symposium |
| 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 | Panelist at the Creative Machine Oxford symposium |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.creativemachine.io/2023-speakers |
| Description | Newsletter article of Marina Jirotka in the University Bulletin and article on University website |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | Local |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Marina Jirotka featured in a bio article / interview. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022,2023 |
| URL | https://www.ox.ac.uk/news-and-events/oxford-people/Marina-Jirotka |
| Description | Opinion piece in the Conversation |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | An opinion piece by Jack Stilgoe in the Conversation argues that current experiments in San Francisco need to be democratised. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://driverless-futures.com/2023/03/03/what-weve-learned-from-experiments-in-san-francisco-and-ph... |
| Description | Organiser of SafeAutonomy workshop at EDCC '24 |
| 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 | Co-organiser of a workshop specialising in safe autonomy at the EDCC conference including academic and industry speakers and workshop activities. Discussions particularly focused on future collaborations to address research challenges in this area. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.iese.fraunhofer.de/en/seminare_training/edcc-workshop.html |
| Description | Paris Motorshow 2024 (w Capgemini) |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze gave an invited talk and took part in a panel discussion. Deep dive into a conversation to learn about the concept of psychological safety in the context of responsible innovation and its potential benefits for the design of autonomous vehicles. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://www.capgemini.com/news/events/mondial-de-lauto-2024/ |
| Description | Piece for TAS Showcase Impact Brochure |
| 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 | Short article in the TAS Showcase Impact brochure describing the work of the RAILS project. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Podcast panel discussion: "Am I safe in an autonomous vehicle?" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Schools |
| Results and Impact | Panel discussion on the Living with AI Podcast: Challenges of Living with Artificial Intelligence, discussing the topic of "Am I safe in an autonomous vehicle?" Panel members: Mohammad Naiseh, Associate Professor Helge Wurdemann, Dr Jo-Ann Pattinson, Tom Webster. Podcast is used as a teaching tool for schools and universities. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.buzzsprout.com/1447474/10861085 |
| Description | Presentation for Law Society of Scotland- Law reform on automated vehicles |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Presentation via Zoom for the Law Society of Scotland to their members "Are we ready for shared operational responsibility in automated vehicles?" which involved a presentation and Q&A |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.lawscot.org.uk/members/cpd-training/events/law-reform-on-automated-vehicles-seminar-the-... |
| Description | Presentation of RAILS project at TAS Hub day |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presentation of project goals, team members and research approach to Trustworthy Autonomous Systems day at Carlton House Terrace |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | RAI UK Town Hall, London |
| 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 | Attending the RAI UK London Town hall provided the opportunity to help shape the future of Responsible AI in the UK. Stakeholders and academics of all disciplines were invited to hear more about the programme, opportunities to engage and network with the team and each other. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.rai.ac.uk/events/event-one-ryclz |
| Description | Robot Talk podcast - "Self-Driving Cars: behind the wheel" |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A broadcast e.g. TV/radio/film/podcast (other than news/press) |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Richard Hawkins was interviewed for an episode of the Robot Talk podcast about Self-Driving Cars. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.ukras.org.uk/RobotTalk/episode-11-self-driving-cars/ |
| Description | Simulator Demonstration at Goodwood Festival of Speed |
| 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 | Lars Kunze, together with colleagues form the ORI, demonstrated automated commentary driving (ACD) using a physical driving simulator setup at the Future Lab of the Festival of Speed, Goodwood. Festival visitors were able to experience ACD first hand by using the simulator. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://www.goodwood.com/motorsport/festival-of-speed/explore-festival-of-speed/fos-future-lab/ |
| Description | TAS AHM |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presented RAILS project to TAS community. Several new research connections have been established based on the talk and related work. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://tas.ac.uk/bigeventscpt/all-hands-meeting-2022/ |
| Description | TAS AHM - Simulator Demonstration |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze, together with colleagues form the ORI, demonstrated automated commentary driving (ACD) using a physical driving simulator setup at TAS all-hands-meeting in London. Attendees (academic/industry) of the TAS AHM were able to experience ACD first hand by using the simulator. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://tas.ac.uk/bigeventscpt/all-hands-meeting-2022/ |
| Description | TAS Robotics Workshop at King's College London |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | Presented overview of ongoing work in RAILS and the Cognitive Robotics Group. Talks and sandpit sessions to discuss the challenges around human-computer interaction and human-robot interaction. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://tas.ac.uk/bigeventscpt/tas-robotics-kcl/ |
| Description | TAS Showcase 2024 |
| 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 | DO presented the RAILS project and the CARLA Responsible AI Challenge at the TAS Showcase event in London (5/6 March 2024). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | TAS-R Workshop in Leeds 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Other audiences |
| Results and Impact | JP presented RAILS at the TAS Responsibility Workshop in Leeds. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | TAS-R workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Prior to the 2023 TAS Symposium in Edinburgh, the TAS Responsibility projects gathered for a one-day workshop. Amongst other discussions, the groups worked on a Declaration for Responsible AI |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://medium.com/@svallor_10030/edinburgh-declaration-on-responsibility-for-responsible-ai-1a98ed2... |
| Description | TAS-Responsibility Collaborative Workshop |
| 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 | Topics on the agenda: Interdisciplinary Approaches to Responsibility, Opportunities for Knowledge Exchange and Impact, and Opportunities for Collaboration Outcome summarised in blog entry: https://medium.com/@svallor_10030/edinburgh-declaration-on-responsibility-for-responsible-ai-1a98ed2e328b |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://medium.com/@svallor_10030/edinburgh-declaration-on-responsibility-for-responsible-ai-1a98ed2... |
| Description | TAS: Addressing Regulatory Challenges to Deploy Trustworthy Al at Scale Workshop |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | Participation in an activity, workshop or similar |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This workshop was attended by academics and regulators. We had a great presence of regulators from NCSC, National Highways, DSIT/Office for AI, HSE, Ofcom, and CMA who presented short talks on AI regulatory issues in their line of work. The main takeaways were: - Regulators need cross-collaboration and cross-regulation advising to solve the biggest problems - There is a need for more evidence-gathering and case studies - Communication beyond policy is important for public understanding |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://tas.ac.uk/impact/policy-impact/tas-regulatory-workshops/ |
| Description | Talk in KCL Seminar for UKRI CDT in Safe and Trusted Artificial Intelligence (STAI) 2025 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Postgraduate students |
| Results and Impact | Lars Kunze was invited to give a seminar to the CDT students. The talk was titled: Making Robots Explainable, Safe, and Trustworthy |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2025 |
| URL | https://safeandtrustedai.org/ |
| Description | Transport session at TAS Showcase 2024 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A formal working group, expert panel or dialogue |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | Participated in panel session on transport in my capacity as a member of the TAS: Responsibility project RAILS. Topics included how EPSRC can create space for consideration of ethics in projects. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| Description | Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Industry Day 2023 |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | National |
| Primary Audience | Industry/Business |
| Results and Impact | Invited talk at the Trustworthy Autonomous Systems Industry Day 2023 (mid March). |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/trustworthy-autonomous-systems-industry-day-2023-tickets-522567542587 |
| Description | UKRI AI and Robotics Accelerator Bootcamp 2024 |
| 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 | The UKRI AI and Robotics Accelerator presents a unique opportunity to engage with investors and corporate partners who recognise the transformative potential of research and can help translate it into innovative products and services. Lars Kunze participated in the bootcamp presenting and developing commercial ideas resulting from research outcomes from RoboTIPS and RAILS. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2024 |
| URL | https://tas.ac.uk/aboutus/welcome-to-the-ukri-ai-and-robotics-accelerator/ |
| Description | Workshop with industry partners |
| 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 | Daylong workshop to engage with project partners including industry and policymakers to |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| Description | Written and oral evidence to the UK Commons Transport Select Committee |
| 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 Driverless Futures team gave written evidence to the Transport Select Committee's inquiry on self-driving vehicles. Jack Stilgoe was asked to appear as a witness. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2022 |
| URL | https://driverless-futures.com/2022/12/21/evidence-to-the-transport-select-committee/ |
| Description | bp's Causal Inference Symposium |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Public/other audiences |
| Results and Impact | From https://medium.com/bp-tech-blog/bps-causal-inference-symposium-discussing-the-next-frontier-in-ai-71ca2a7dbd2c "So, in September 2023, bp invited causal AI heavyweights from leading academic institutes and industry to meet virtually for a Causal Inference Symposium, which was attended by more than 900 people from academic institutes and companies. Our aim was to make space for the causal AI discussion and bring great minds together to solve problems that matter. Given the importance of causal AI to the energy industry and beyond, bp is keen to build a global community on causal inference and help foster the sharing of knowledge and new methods, as part of our efforts to build safe, reliable and useful AI that provides value for all." |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2023 |
| URL | https://medium.com/bp-tech-blog/bps-causal-inference-symposium-discussing-the-next-frontier-in-ai-71... |