Ryan Donnelly takes part in the Royal Academy of Engineering's Responsible AI Experts Interview Series

This article was originally published on the Royal Academy of Engineering website. Explore the full series here

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The Royal Academy of Engineering’s Digital and Physical Infrastructures team spoke to Ryan about how organisations can manage the risks associated with AI and which ones they should be prioritising in the short term.

We have seen a real focus recently on frontier AI and foundation models. What does frontier AI mean to you? What do you think are the greatest opportunities and risks associated with it?

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Frontier AI is a bit of a nebulous term that refers to the most advanced versions of AI that we have available to us today.

In terms of opportunities, I tend to think about AI the way I think about any other technology – and that is in terms of trade-offs. Powerful technologies come with large risks and understanding those risks is important to appropriately managing them. There are already a number of ways to manage these risks but work in this area must progress if we are to access the full benefit of AI. 

The benefits of using AI differ depending on your perspective. In the context of a commercial business, there are tonnes of efficiencies that can be gained from using these kinds of technologies for admin-heavy tasks. One of the things I am super interested in, though, is the application of AI for drug discovery. Across the scientific space there have been a number of breakthroughs that are already changing the world, and simply put, there is tremendous potential for AI to transform our lives for the better as long as we get the risk piece right.

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“I know it is not as headline grabbing as some of the other topics that will be discussed at the summit, but I think dealing with the immediate risks is actually more impactful work.”

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This is not something that is incredibly technical, or something for only the big tech companies to sort out, because this really is not a debate about what AI can or should do. It is a conversation about how we govern ourselves and how we legislate for bad actors, and it is a discussion that I think we need to have at a societal level.

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