Welcoming Yoshua Bengio + new neurotech, robotics and AI funding calls
What's new at ARIA…
We launched funding calls for two new programmes – Robot Dexterity and Precision Neurotechnologies. Concept paper submissions are now closed, but full proposal submissions open later this month.
Applications for seed funding in the Smarter Robot Bodies opportunity space are open until 27 August.
We’ve published theses for our first three climate-related programmes, each designed to improve our understanding of and ability to respond to the climate crisis. Read them here: Forecasting Tipping Points, Exploring Options for Actively Cooling the Earth, and Synthetic Plants for a Sustainable Future.
A new funding call for our Safeguarded AI programme is now live. It allocates an initial £5.4M to demonstrate the practical value of "gatekeeper AI" in domain-specific settings and applications, from balancing electricity grids, to clinical trial optimisation. More below on how Yoshua Bengio will provide strategic and scientific advice to accelerate our efforts.
Interested in becoming an ARIA Programme Director? Applications for our second cohort go live in September. Register your interest here.
And ICYMI, our CEO Ilan recently spoke at the TBI’s Future of Britain Conference on the critical role the UK's R&D ecosystem can play in addressing global challenges.
Yoshua Bengio joins Safeguarded AI as Scientific Director
“If you're going to be deploying something, and the consequences of AI misbehaving or being misused are potentially very significant… you need to have a strong case, and ideally strong mathematical guarantees, that your AI is going to behave well.” - Yoshua Bengio
We're excited to welcome Professor Yoshua Bengio as Scientific Director for Safeguarded AI, supporting the work led by Programme Director ‘davidad’ Dalrymple.
A world-renowned computer scientist and a pioneer in deep learning, Yoshua was awarded the 2018 Turing Award, often referred to as the "Nobel Prize of Computing," for his groundbreaking work in artificial intelligence.
Read more here.
Meet our first R&D Creators
We’ve announced our first R&D Creators, recipients of ARIA research funding. Based across the UK, our first teams are working on opportunity seeds in Nature Computes Better. Read more here.
Read our Corporate Plan
We recently published our first Corporate Plan. In it, we share our progress to date, dive into our opportunity spaces, and set out our model for long-term impact. Check it out here.