Hello ODI Supporter,
Many local authorities have rolled out AI note-taking tools across social work in recent months, and while their time-saving benefits have been welcomed by social workers, new research published this week suggests potentially harmful errors. The wonderfully titled Scribe and prejudice?, published by the Ada Lovelace Institute, revealed misrepresentations of people’s experiences making it into official care records across an eight-month study. In one instance, an AI transcription tool summarised that a client had discussed suicidal ideation, where none had taken place. Another set of AI notes referred to “fishfingers or flies or trees” when a child had been talking about their parents fighting. The research found that AI transcription services deliver demonstrable time savings, freeing up social workers to spend more time with service users, but mistakes in the technology could lead to concerning patterns of behaviour being missed. Lara Groves, senior researcher and co-author of the report, said “Delivering time savings is not necessarily the same thing as delivering public benefit, especially if these come at the cost of inaccuracy or unaccountability.”
Loyalty card data from two of the UK’s biggest retailers is being analysed by researchers from Imperial College London to identify early symptoms of cancer. Data from Boots and Tesco cards will be analysed, looking at past purchases of over-the-counter medication by patients with a formal cancer diagnosis and those of a healthy control group. Researchers are currently recruiting up to 3,000 volunteers. The study will build on previous work using Boots and Tesco loyalty card data, which examined the purchasing behaviour of pain and indigestion medication in women with and without ovarian cancer. The new study will broaden in scope to look at 10 specific cancer types, including bladder, oesophageal and stomach. If the study is successful, it could lead to an alert system for shoppers based on their purchasing behaviour.
We’re looking for a Head of Research to join the ODI and help lead our multidisciplinary team of researchers. This role will support the Director of Research and will be responsible for scoping, selling and delivering ODI’s research to support the creation of an open, trustworthy data ecosystem. If this sounds of interest, we’d love to hear from you (by 20th February), so have a look at the job description and get in touch.
Join us next week for Solid World, Wednesday 18 February, 16:00-17:00 GMT, where we’ll chart the course for the next era of the decentralised web and will explore the roadmap for Solid. On Monday 23 February 16:00-17:00 GMT, join us as we look at ethical AI in action in the next webinar in our Data Ethics Professional series. Get your tickets now.
And finally… today is Friday the 13th. ‘So what?” I hear some of you say. But not the people with paraskevidekatriaphobia. Anyway, new research from the National Folklore Survey for England revealed this week that almost a quarter of people in England believe Friday 13th is unlucky, while 8.5% believe the day is actually lucky. Oh, and the same research found 49% of people celebrate Valentine’s Day, with the chances of celebrating decreasing with age. Sigh.
Until next time.
David and Jo
