Four Scottish universities are supporting a new project to tackle emerging concerns about generative and other forms of AI currently being built and deployed across society.

Backed by £3.5m in funding from Responsible AI UK (RAi UK), the project is called Participatory Harm Auditing Workbenches and Methodologies (PHAWM).

Researchers from the University of Glasgow will lead the new project, with support from colleagues at the University of Edinburgh, Strathclyde, and Stirling, as well as the English universities of York, Sheffield, and King’s College London.

Together, they’ll look to develop new methods for maximising potential benefits of predictive and generative AI, while minimising the potential for harm arising from bias and hallucinations.

The project will include participatory AI auditing where non-experts—such as regulators, end-users, and people likely to be affected by decisions made by AI systems—will play a role in ensuring systems provide fair and reliable outputs.

It’s also set to develop new tools to support the AI auditing process in partnership with relevant stakeholders, focusing on four key use cases for predictive and generative AI, and create new training resources to help encourage widespread adoption of the tools.

Dr Simone Stumpf, who’s from the University of Glasgow’s School of Computing Science and is the project’s principal investigator, said: “By the project’s conclusion, we will have developed a robust training programme and a route towards certification of AI solutions, and a fully featured workbench of tools to enable people without a background in artificial intelligence to participate in audits, make informed decisions, and shape the next generation of AI.”

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Funding for the project has been awarded by Responsible AI UK, which is led from the University of Southampton and backed by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) through the UKRI Technology Missions Fund, and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC).

Since its launch last year, RAi UK has delivered £13m of research funding. It’s developing its own research programme to support ongoing work across major initiatives such as the AI Safety Institute, the Alan Turing Institute, and BRAID UK.

Professor Gopal Ramchurn, CEO of RAi UK, commented: “The concerns around AI are not just for governments and industry to deal with – it is important that AI experts engage with researchers and policymakers to ensure we can better anticipate the issues that will be caused by AI.”