Blog – Welcome

Dr Oldfield speaks at All Ireland Technical Conference

May 8, 2025

Dr Oldfield delivered a talk at Queens University Belfast on the benefits of professional accreditation. Dr Oldfield covered the risks of AI and how these risks impact the general public as well as AI professionals. Regulation and Legislation in AI at UK and EU level were discussed as was best practice in AI. Specifically joining a community of like minded individuals and experts can help professionals keep up with new development and advance their discipline together. This can include a joined up voice into UK government and international developments. Being a part of a community give publishing and speaking opportunities as well as a way to give back to their community.

Dr Oldfield delivers keynote at SPRITE+ Expert Fellows Conference 2025

March 12, 2025

Keynote confirmed by Dr Marie Oldfield on AI and Ethics AI is a rapidly developing discipline that requires a foundation of academic methodology and a professional basis for it to work ethically and robustly. Dr Oldfield speaks about regulation, standards and legislation as well as what we need to do to move forward in an ethical and safe manner when building and using AI. Citizen literacy plays a large part in this and some questions were ‘ how can get shoehorn this into the curriculum. It is clear that during the school day currently there is very little time and it is hard enough to get enough maths into the timetable but there is a lot of good practice coming out of countries around the world that guides us to introduce philosophy and ethics into STEM subjects. STEM without ethics, context and awareness of societal impacts is a dangerous world. Citizens must be aware of their rights and the channels for recompense and challenge when dealign with companies deploying AI that may not have been robustly or ethically developed. The QAA have a very large role in this and must look to re-evaluate and fundamentally change the Maths/Stats/OR benchmark statements

Oldfield Consultancy delivering AI training courses (reaching capacity for 2025 so book now)

March 12, 2025

Oldfield Consultancy is currently delivering training courses on AI. We are reaching capacity for 2025 and have been booked by higher education, government and industry. These courses follow the prescribed methodology for building and assuring robust and ethical AI originating in UK Government. The RTechAI course enables delegates to use th post nominals RTechAI after successful completion of the competency paperwork during the course. This course is suitable for entry to mid level professionals. The AI essentials course provides a thorough introduction to AI offering a foundational understanding of AI for practitioners. It covers AI concepts, ethics, and future regulations. RTechAI Course Aim: To equip participants with increased awareness, insight and risk analysis in order to better engage with AI. Objectives: What is AI? How is ethics involved in AI development? What is the AI development pipeline and where do I fit in? What different types of AI are there? How do I find out more and update my CPD on AI? What risks do I need to be aware of? Potential accountability in future legislation and regulation What interpersonal skills and communication skills do I need in order to facilitate an AI build? How can I critically evaluate an

Oldfield Consultancy admitted to JOSCAR Framework

February 21, 2025

We are very proud to be accepted onto the JOSCAR/HELIOS framework. Oldfield Consultancy looks forward to working further with Defence and UK Government.

Dr Oldfield appointed IST CEN/CENELEC liaison

January 22, 2025

The Institute of Science and Technology has appointed Dr Oldfield as liaison to the EU standard body CEN/CENELEC. As a liaison body the IST is able to provide input and expert opinion to standards within the EU. Alongside sitting on the BSI ART/1 committee for the UK this provides the IST with a key opportunity to enable member’s views to be elevated to an international stage. Providing critical expertise is a key mission for the IST and both Dr Oldfield and the IST are looking forward to this opportunity for collaboration. As this post is written the IST has already commented on 34 pieces of standards work within the first 4 months of membership. These have ranged from philosophical and ethical standards to competency frameworks and in depth statistical standards on neural networks. The IST is proud to be able to provide an opportunity for our body of AI practitioners to directly influence standards, policy and legislation that will be a key element of their work moving forwards. The current spotlight on AI within CEN/CENELEC is an ideal time for the IST to establish liaison channels.

Dr Oldfield Plenary Speaker at GORS, UK Government Operational Research Service Conference

January 13, 2025

Dr Oldfield is delighted to deliver a plenary at the Government Operational Research Service Conference on 5th February 25. Dr Oldfield discussed the current out of date AQuA book used within the Civil Service for analysis and the requirement to ensure this is updated for AI. It is critical that there is a level of best practice within government to enable robust and ethical use of AI and software within government. Risks associated with AI, modelling and software as well as current best practice were presented.

Dr Oldfield attends the opening of the Bath Institute of AI

January 13, 2025

Dr Oldfield is delighted to be attending the opening of the new Institute of AI at Bath University. The Institute of Science ad Technology and Oldfield Consultancy look forward to collaborating in the future with this new intiative. Discussions with the Government Office for Science took place in regards to Citizen Literacy.

Dr Oldfield speaks at AISB on AI Professional Accreditation

January 13, 2025

Dr Oldfield will be speaking at AISB in January 2025. In June 2024 Dr Oldfield hosted the London Mathematical Society Research School on Ethics in AI. The output from this school was concerning in the lack of support available to AI practitioners and specifically students. The Institute of Science and Technology, recognised as the body for AI Practitioners globally, is now working with industry, academia and industry to showcase the training courses, support options and professional accreditation available for practitioners. The IST also hold the pipeline for best practice in AI which has been used for several years globally. This is now being formalised academically and by government. It is crucial that support is available for best practise as the IST is currently involved in creating UK and EU standards and legislation/regulation will begin in the not too distant future to regulate modelling in maths/stats/sciences/AI. Therefore it is imperative that the education needed and the guidance required by practitioners is available to them. The IST provides this as a non profit body and is the centre of best practice and professional accreditation in AI in the UK and globally.

Dr Oldfield speaks on the Heavybit Podcast about ethical benchmarks in AI

September 18, 2024

Dr Oldfield spoke on the Heavybit Podcast about ethical benchmarks in AI ? https://www.heavybit.com/library/podcasts/generationship/ep-10-ethical-benchmarks-for-ai-with-dr-marie-oldfield Ethical Benchmarks are key for developers to create and implement robust and ethical AI. The problems come when ethical benchmarks don’t exist. In higher education in the UK we have no teaching or assessment benchmarks for AI. This leaves professionals untrained or poorly trained. Professionals are then subject to legislation and regulation and crucially, accountability. This leaves practitioners open to prosecution without even having the pre requisite training. Therefore the establishment of the Professional Accreditation for AI by the Institute of Science and Technology (IST) is a key change moving forwards. The IST provides best practice, training, access to a community of like minded professionals as well as free entry for students. The IST HE QA Mark for educational course means we can quality assure the teaching and assessment that is undertaken in tertiary education. Below are links to the resources linked above. AI Professional Accreditation Framework document https://bit.ly/ist-ai-accred-framework-doc AI Accreditation & Quality Mark document https://bit.ly/ist-ai-accred-qm-doc

Dr Oldfield speaks on the LSE Eden podcast about AI and Education

September 18, 2024

Dr Oldfield spoke on the LSE Eden podcast about AI and Education ? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pTCgq7YcIxI Currently in higher education there are concerns on” How we teach AI How we select AI to teach How we critically analyse AI for the risks we need to communicate to users How do we figure out the risks we need to communicate How do we communicate risk The problem is that this has led to knee-jerk reaction with many deciding to go back to exam style assessment. Dr Oldfield argues that we need to go back to first principles and decide what we want to teach and how we want to assess it whilst being aware of how AI can be used. Banning the use of AI or coming up with with new ways to exclude AI is clearly now not a credible way forward. In addition turn it in is n not able to work with det