In 2017, I joined Polygeia, a student-driven think tank focusing on health and its intersection with technology, politics, and economics. I led a five-person team of multidisciplinary researchers on a project investigating the policy issues around the application of artificial intelligence (AI) technology in the UK health sector. We produced a 60-page report [PDF] with stakeholder recommendations covering policy areas including data governance, digital infrastructure, standards and regulations, the workforce, and legal liability.

As project lead, I defined the scope of the project, convened regular team meetings, and liaised with individual team members to provide guidance. Additionally, I synthesised academic, government, industry, and third sector literature to support team members, and interviewed expert stakeholders for additional input. Finally, I edited and compiled the team’s written output into a formatted and typeset report (designed in LaTeX).

Daniel Zeichner, MP for Cambridge, wrote a foreword and invited us to officially launch the report at Westminster in November 2018. Attendees included MPs, Parliamentary staff, and representatives from NHS Digital. We also submitted our report to the Government’s consultation on the Centre for Data Ethics and Innovation. Finally, our interim findings were also submitted to the Parliamentary Science and Technology Committee’s inquiry on Algorithms in Decision-making, where they were in cited in the inquiry’s final report.

Thanks to team members and external collaborators: Alice Ahn, Rachel Paterson, Matthew Reid, Emily Hilbourne, Bryan Adriaanse, Giorgio Quer, Dror Nir, and Parth Patel.