Experience

FACT360

• United Kingdom
• IT Services and IT Consulting
• 1 - 100 Employee

• Chief Scientific Adviser

  • Mar 2017 - Present

  FACT360 is a UK company pioneering the use of AI and unsupervised machine learning to help organisations find critical information that exists within their communication networks. Underpinned by leading edge academic research, its practical solutions generate results that are impossible to achieve in other ways. Formed in 2017, FACT360 is widely used in fraud and insider threat investigations and applies the technology more broadly providing businesses with fact-based rationale on which to take strategic decisions. Show less



The Centre for Intelligent Data Analytics

• Director

  • Mar 2017 - Oct 2020

  There are many state-of-art computer labs around the world already deploying AI on very complex academic problems; for example, strategic games (Google/DeepMind’s AlphaZero (Go, chess, shogi)), virtual assistants (Apple’s Siri), autonomous vehicles (Tesla Autopilot, Google Waymo, FiveAI), and natural language processing (IBM’s Watson). Significant progress in AI has been made through these advancements over the last few years. However, the game playing systems highlighted above, which with good cause have attracted the media spotlight, are built for well defined homogeneous and discretised environments, where the data at hand has a specific and unambiguous meaning. Commonly, business data environments are a far cry from these, having heterogeneous systems accessing siloed data stores with many textual fields that may be corrupt, misplaced, and sometimes missing. Commercial and legal constraints require ever greater needs for process transparency, data protection, and accountability. Businesses want high levels of process automation and interoperation at affordable costs and minimal risk. TCIDA brings together a multi-disciplinary group of world class specialists in artificial intelligence, data science and mathematics, with a unique and proven track record in deploying state-of-art computational tools (AI, [Deep] Neural Networks, Swarm Intelligence, Graphical Methods, NLP, Classification, Prediction) on real-world commercial, financial and business problems. Problems including: Procurement Analytics, HR Analytics, Process Automation, Data Quality and Provenance, Automation and AI Ethics. Mark is Associate Editor of nine international academic journals and - as the Director of TCIDA, the ex-Chair of the AISB, a co-opted expert on AI for ICRAC and Professor of Cognitive Computing at Goldsmiths - regularly asked to advise on policy relating to Artificial Intelligence at the UN, the EC and the UK. Show less



Goldsmiths, University of London

• United Kingdom
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Director of TCIDA (the Tungsten Centre for Intelligent Data Analytics)

  • Mar 2015 - Oct 2020

  Beginning way back in 2003, my research in Data Science (DTI and @UKplc) examined the possibility of fraud detection by detecting abnormal/unusual web/client activity. A follow-up project (DTI and @UKplc) with the University of Reading) led to the development of analytics software - SpendInsight (now commercialised by CloudBuy) - which was evaluated by the UK National Audit Office in the context of NHS annual procurement, where it famously highlighted potential savings of over £500million .In 2014 I secured a new Joint Venture (JV) between Goldsmiths and Tungsten to fund TCIDA , a new research centre in Artificial Intelligence and Analytics, specifically targeting commercial problems in business automation and financial analysis. Over its first two years of operation the team developed a state-of-art Address Parser and Company/Product identification system, IDEAL (a framework for merging disparate sources of information), together providing the robust foundations for a comprehensive state-of-art analytics system resulting in eight new full-length journal papers & five conference publications.At the heart of spend analysis is the general problem of forming an accurate, detailed semantic understanding of items from the raw text information that is available to the system (e.g. product descriptions). This data must be analysed using the existing knowledge base; there may, however, sometimes not be enough current `context' to unambiguously `understand' this data; in such circumstances it may be necessary to enrich information via additional user interaction and/or web spidering. To help solve such semantic issues there is scope for application of new AI techniques; for example, deep learning and reservoir computing and the newly emerging area of quantum linguistics. Show less

• Professor of Cognitive Computing

  • Sep 2008 - Oct 2020

  Under the aegis of Cognitive Computing Professor J. Mark Bishop's research activity spans Artificial Intelligence (its theory & application) and Philosophy.In the field of Artificial Intelligence Mark was foundationally involved in developing the first Swarm Intelligence algorithm, Stochastic Diffusion Search (SDS) - an efficient search, optimization & parameter estimation meta-heuristic. SDS is now established as one of the core Swarm Intelligence paradigms (c.f. the Swarm Intelligence Wikipedia pages: ). SDS has subsequently enjoyed wide application in areas as diverse as mobile robotic localisation and computational creativity. In addition to foundational work in Artificial Intelligence, Mark has accumulated significant practical experience in the application of Artificial Intelligence to real-world problems, most notably in the domain of Data Analytics (DTI; Tungsten Corp). Aside from Data Science, Mark has also successfully managed large projects deploying AI in diverse areas inc: time-series forecasting (UK National Grid); face recognition (BT); interplanetary mission planning (ESA); mobile-robot localisation (EU) and colour-physics (Courtaulds plc).In contrast, in the field of Philosophy, Mark developed the 'Dancing with Pixies' argument against machine consciousness and published three well-reviewed books: Views into the Chinese room , Contemporary Sensorimotor Theory & Embodied Cognition, Acting and Performance .Over the years Bishop's work has attracted broad attention, including an invitation to discuss 'machine consciousness' at TEDx, London and debate AI with Prof Murray Shanahan on Radio Four's flagship, "Agree to Differ" . Show less

• Reader in Cognitive Computing

  • Oct 2002 - Sep 2008

  After moving to Goldsmiths I developed a new MSc in Cognitive Computing. This entailed writing a new 40 credit module in Cognitive Science and its Critics and liaising with other staff to provide modules in Technology or thought and Java Programming.In my research, together with Dr. Nasuto (Reading), I published further work developing the theory of Stochastic Diffusion Processes; whilst in the philosophy of AI I also further refined the 'Dancing with Pixies' reductio against the possibility of computationally instantiated consciousness. Further work investigating Searle's Chinese room argument, also led me to dig deeper into Alan Turing's legacy which eventually led to involvement with Barry Cooper and the Alan Turing Centenary Committee.Soon after joining Goldsmiths I became a member of the AISB - the world's first society for Artificial Intelligence and the Simulation of Behaviour - and subsequently was nominated to join the organising committee of the society.As a Reader in Cognitive Computing at Goldsmiths I worked on funded research projects for: (a) the European Space Agency in mission planning; (b) the Knowledge Transfer Office and @UK plc in Online Fraud Detection and later Search Engine Technology - work which eventually morphed into the e-purchasing tools - SpendInsight and GreenInsight.AWARDS: At the 2006 Emerald Publishing Literati Network Awards for Excellence, a paper I co-authored with Dr. Slawek Nasuto, "Second Order Cybernetics and Enactive Perception", won the Norbert Wiener Award and was recognised as Outstanding Paper of 2006 by the journal Kybernetes. Show less



University of Reading

• United Kingdom
• Higher Education
• 700 & Above Employee

• Lecturer

  • 1989 - 2003

  Whilst at the university of Reading I was programme leader for Computer Science and Cybernetics; Cybernetics and Psychology and Intelligence Systems undergraduate degrees. In teaching I developed new undergraduate courses in: Introduction to Programming in Modula II; Introduction to Artificial Intelligence; Introduction to Cognitive Science; Neural Networks Applied; Further Cognitive Science; Computing Machinery & Intelligence; Advanced Neural Networks; Mind as Motion. I also developed new processes for undergraduate project allocation and assessment. In my research at the University of Reading - together with Dr. Slawek Nasuto and a strong team of graduate students - I carried out foundational work in Stochastic Diffusion Processes and Swarm Intelligence; pace Igor Aleksander, I also carried out new work in the field of Weightless Neural Networks. In contrast, in the area of the Philosophy of AI - together with John Preston (Dept. Philosophy, Reading) - I instigated an international critique of John Searle's 'Chinese Room Argument', one of the most controversial arguments in modern philosophy of mind. In the process I finessed a novel argument against the possibility of machine consciousness. Over the years this work has attracted media attention, not least because it attempts to undermine sensationalist claims that, 'robots will take over the world' and as a result I have been invited to debate the position several times: on TV as a panel guest on the BBC program 'Knowledge Talks'; twice on Radio Four - 'The Today Program' (live) and as one of the keynote speakers on a special New Year's Eve documentary on AI which also included contributions from Susan Blakemore, Jonathan Miller, Marvin Minsky, Kevin Warwick and Arthur C. Clarke - and most recently as a guest of BBC RADIO 3-Counties. Show less