This October, I had an opportunity to participate in the panel on Trust in AI that took place as part of Digital Life Norway conference organized by Centre for Digital Life Norway (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)) that took place in a very peaceful Hurdal (Norway) 🇳🇴🇳🇴🇳🇴.

As part of this panel, together with M. Nicolas Cruz B. (KIWI-biolab), Korbinian Bösl (ELIXIR, both of us being also part of EOSC Association)), and Anamika Chatterjee (Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)), who masterly chaired this discussion, we discussed trust in AI and data (as an integral part of it), emphasizing the need for transparency, reproducibility, and responsibility in managing them.

What made this discussion to be rather insightful – for ourselves, and, hopefully, for the audience as well – is that each of us represented a distinct stage in the data lifecycle debated upon the aspect of trust and where concerns arise as data moves from the lab to inform AI tools [in biotechnology].
As such we:
✅highlighted the interconnectedness of human actors involved in data production, governance, and application;
✅highlighted the importance of proper documentation to make data usable and trustworthy, along with the need for transparency – not only for data but also for AI in general, incl. explainable AI;
✅discussed how responsibility becomes blurred as AI-driven methodologies become more prevalent, agreeing that responsibility for AI systems must be shared across teams.
Lastly, despite being openness advocate, I used this opportunity to touch on the risks of open data, including the potential for misuse and ethical concerns, esp. when it comes to medical- and biotechnologies-related topics.

All in all, although rather short discussion with some more things we would love to cover but were forced to omit this time, but very lively and insightful. Sounds interesting? Watch the video, incl. keynote by Nico Cruz 👇.

And not of least interest was a diverse set of other events – keynotes, panels, posters etc. – takeaways from which to take back home (not really to home, as from the DNL, I went to the Estonian Open Data Forum, from which to ECAI, and then, finally back home to digest all the insights), where “Storytelling: is controversy good? How to pitch your research to a non-academic audience” by Kam Sripada and panel on supervision are probably the main things I take with me.

Many thanks go organizers for having me and the hospitality, where the later also goes to Hurdal 🇳🇴 in general, as we were lucky enough to have a very sunny weather, which made this very first trip to Norway – and, hopefully, not the last one – very pleasant!