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IBM say that that “Project Debater is the first AI system that can debate humans on complex topics. The goal is to help people build persuasive arguments and make well-informed decisions.” They showcased a fascinating debate on pre-school subsidies with experts and a live audience in San Francisco. Project Debater won the argument!

Project Debater has a very clear synthetic female voice and puts together enormous amounts of data about a subject and presents it in a very succinct way that makes perfect sense.

One wonders how this system could perhaps be used to work with those who need to be encouraged to have conversations and like to use technology rather than face humans in a debate. Also to help with practicing debating skills when social behaviour skills need encouraging and shyness needs to be overcome. The system could possibly help those with cognitive disabilities understand issues and be trained to allow more time between statements, perhaps to slow down a little and to use easy to comprehend language. Lots of ideas to think about and IBM have provided more information on how the project works.

The Department of Health and Social Care has published an updated Code of conduct for data-driven health and care technology with a reorganised set of principles that are easier to read. Austin Clarke says that:

“The code encourages technology companies to meet a gold-standard set of principles to protect patient data to the highest standards. It has been drawn up with the help of industry, academics and patient groups.

The aim is to make it easier for suppliers to develop technologies that tackle some of the biggest issues in healthcare, such as dementia, obesity and cancer. It will also help health and care providers choose safe, effective and secure technology to improve the services they provide.”

The 10 Principles are as follows:

The principles

• Principle 1: Understand users, their needs and the context
• Principle 2: Define the outcome and how the technology will contribute to it
• Principle 3: Use data that is in line with appropriate guidelines for the purpose for which it is being used
• Principle 4: Be fair, transparent and accountable about what data is being used
• Principle 5: Make use of open standards
• Principle 6: Be transparent about the limitations of the data used
• Principle 7: Show what type of algorithm is being developed or deployed, the ethical examination of how the data is used, how its performance will be validated and how it will be integrated into health and care provision
• Principle 8: Generate evidence of effectiveness for the intended use and value for money
• Principle 9: Make security integral to the design
• Principle 10: Define the commercial strategy