CGI returned to the Old Course Hotel in St Andrews this spring for its fourth annual conference in Scotland.
This time the company’s flagship event was over two days. Day one saw CGI play host to around 140 S3 pupils from secondary schools across Fife at a special STEM Day.
The teenagers enjoyed presentations from Police Scotland and talks from Universities of St Andrews, Dundee, and Abertay, Fife College, and CGI on what it takes to get into STEM.
They also enjoyed interactive challenges and prizewinning opportunities, with CGI naming the best school Beath High in Cowdenbeath. Their team won a SPHERO education pack, while individual winners from 12 schools were presented with Chilly’s water bottles.
Day Two saw more than 150 guests gathered for a day of speeches, workshops and networking opportunities, this time based on the theme ‘creating a sustainable and ethical environment for our future’.
Hosted by John Morrison, Managing Director of PR, Public Affairs and Media Training company Morrison Media, and introduced by Lindsay McGranaghan, Senior Vice-President and Business Unit Lead in Scotland and Northern Ireland, subjects ranged from further advances in AI, to driving sustainable change in order to meet the needs of an ever-changing Scotland, and the battle against the ever adaptable forces of cybercrime.
Here are 10 headline moments from keynote speakers at the event :
Dr Diane Gutiw, CGI VP Global AI Research Centre Lead
Subject: The shifting conversation with AI – Making AI useful
AI is not new
AI was born in 1956 with early machine learning bringing data together to supply information for decision makers in, for example, banking and insurance. However, due to a lack of computer power and investment interest dipped to the late 1980s.
Then there was a second surge based around ‘deep learning’ and recurrent neural networks needed to discover patterns in data through automation to assist in decision-making – such as in healthcare to help a doctor make a quicker, and more accurate diagnosis.
However, it was the advent of cloud computing in the new millennium where AI took off, leading to the creation of generative AI. In the last decade alone AI use cases have included predictive models for preventative medicine, diagnostics and treatment; Personalised treatments and vaccines; Genomic modelling; Advancements in GenAI and foundation models for analysis of documents and images.
Building Trust in AI
We are moving to the age of human-like multi-model AGI, where AI can automatically perform a full analysis of data and accurately predict outcomes and movements.
However, generative AI still has a way to go on quality, privacy and security to become 100% fully trusted in terms of decision making.
To trust the outputs of AI, we must curate its information in the way we curate water – that is, when water comes out of our taps, we know it’s 100% safe. AI needs to be like this, but this can only be achieved if we think of generative AI as a tool or service, fine-tune it so it has a specific context and point it at the data – real or synthetic – we want it to interrogate.
One example of successful AI is the ‘digital triplet’, where AI is put on top of Digital Twin ecosystems to explore and interrogate data in natural language and provide additional insights that might be missed by humans. This helps inform, for instance in healthcare, the best clinical trial or treatment protocol for this patient.
Agentic AI is the future
Agentic AI is based on a number of AI agents that collaborate autonomously to achieve specific goals needed to fulfill a more complex request initiated by a human.
A human user poses a question to an Orchestrator Agent, which interprets the request then assigns different retriever or data preparation agents with a specific function to retrieve information. The data they retrieve is validated for correctness by the Orchestrator Agent, who calculates the response, and generates the information in natural language and also with images.
This multi-modal approach brings real value by presenting solutions through conversations in natural language that boosts trustworthiness. It is able to solve harder, strategic problems more accurately, under human ‘collaboration’ and supervision.
Speaker: Christina Fung, CGI Senior Vice-President Global AI Centre of Excellence in Toronto
Subject: Innovation for impact – The power of AI
Ethical AI is a business imperative
Artificial Intelligence is reshaping industry, economies and our society at a lightning speed. We have never seen this kind of pace before. So understanding the potentials, the risk and the impacts is no longer an option, it is our obligation. We all need to step up.
Dr Geoffrey Hinton, Emeritus of Computer Science at University of Toronto and joint Nobel Prize for Physics winner with Princeton University’s John Hopfield last year, is known as the ‘godfather of AI’.
He has compare AI to nuclear technology, when it was first invented people realised how impactful and what it can do to the world. Countries regulate it, centralised it, and only give nuclear assets to people they trust. But in AI, it’s on the iPhone, everyone can play with it. So instead we need to learn how to use AI ethically.
That involves leadership to make the right decisions, courage to embrace change and collaborate, admitting that what worked in the past may not work in the future. Partnerships are also critical in order to build trust, and realise the consequences that will likely arise from the innovation that is being undertaken with AI.
The future is up to us
Technology can be used to damage our world. This can be unintentional, through use of unreliable data and misinformation to construct narratives through AI that are entirely false – and which can have serious repercussions when using AI for story-telling on the internet. Right now, over 50% of what you read on the internet is produced by machine, while CGI is forecasting this figure to rise to 80% by 2026.
Then there’s an increase is using AI for fraudulent activities, job displacement, an increase in energy consumption and an overreliance on AI that leads to a lack of education, poor quality data, and a lack of guidance and guardrails in place.
But there are lots of positives. It enhances healthcare such as the use of digital triplets, which adds the power of AI to digital twins to aid clinicians in their diagnosis, it improves quality, efficiency and productivity, clients get a much faster service, and it aids in the creation of new innovative products and solutions. Even in international sport, there’s more use of AI judges to remove bias in decision making.
But it’s up to us to stay on top of it through having visionary leadership, talent and expertise, ensure the ethical and compliance guidance and governance is in place, be aware of the continuing need for quality data, real and synthetic, and plan for energy needs to power AI.
Speaker: Des Murray, Chief Executive of North Lanarkshire Council and Chair of Solace Scotland
Subject: Understanding the scale of the challenge facing our population to direct our response
Understanding ourselves
Scotland is facing a series of significant challenges, and how we respond to them will ultimately shape Scotland’s future.
But what has shaped our lives ultimately shapes us in society and our needs as people – from breastfeeding, to nursery and school, through education and training, pregnancy and parenthood, work life and employment, retirement and care.
While the current focus is on health and social care provision, we must look at our lives as a whole and how people end up needing health and social care support.
Factors that influence a person’s total health include not just access to care and quality of care, but our health behaviours (drinking, smoking, diet and activity), physical environment (air and water quality, housing and transportation) and also socio-economic – education, employment, income, family and social support, plus community safety.
Understanding demographics
The age structure of Scottish society has changed significantly the past 100 years – but it is a trajectory we have known about for 50. Since 2006, Scotland has more adults aged over 65 than it does children under 15. Yet there are no positive indicators this is being turned around – no significant increase in newborns is on the horizon, and the debate over immigration is polarised.
Although this is a problem facing all of Western Europe, the trajectory of an increasingly unbalanced population in Scotland will affect us significantly: by 2043 the number of over-65s will increase by a further 40%.
Understanding our regions and nation
We produced a North Lanarkshire ‘state of the nation’ report card – a look into the state of the region (not the council) and highlighting the positive improvements or negatives emerging in society in the years since North Lanarkshire introduced its regional plan.
Big positives were that the local economy grew 14% in the past three years, thanks to investment in skills and industry that matched the employment needs of the population.
Gross weekly pay rose 35%, school pupils gaining qualifications was up, while exclusions were down, and employment was also up.
However, there were downsides – life expectancy decreased, those economically inactive had risen, and despite economic growth, children living in poverty had increased.
Other regions of Scotland – including many in which members of the audience lived in – have undoubtedly fared a lot worse.
So that is why everyone across Scottish society – business included – needs to work together to continue tackling these major challenges, for the sake of Scotland.
Speaker: Detective Inspector Russell Kerr, Police Scotland
Subject: Keeping momentum with policing in a digital world
Staying Ahead of the Criminals
Cyber criminals are using AI, they have no financial restrictions, no governance, and so the challenges and opportunities facing modern policing are greater than ever before.
And it is ongoing. In September 2024 Police Scotland Chief Constable Jo Farrell outlined her 2030 vision which focused on safer communities, less crime, supported victims and a thriving workforce.
Within the 2030 vision was a three-year business plan to support the establishment of a new cyber and fraud specialist division, to enhance our response in Scotland, working with UK law enforcement and partner agencies to combat the threat of cyber and fraud crime.
Police Scotland also embedded a 4P approach to dealing with cyber-related threats: Prevent, Pursue, Prepare and Protect which is in line with other UK policing strategies. Prevention involves providing skills and training to deal with cybercrime, horizon scanning to future proof technology, and preparation through good partnerships and engagement with other UK and international crime agencies.
Police Scotland recognises and responds to online crime – which keeps evolving – as being one of the biggest threats to our communities. We introduced digital evidence detection dogs that are trained to detect a wide range of digital devices.
Another capability introduced is Digital Forensic Triage Vans that allow a safe environment for quick examination of devices. Police Scotland continues to keep ahead of technology through our digital forensic labs, whilst also adopting an ethical approach to use of data-driven technology that maintains public trust and confidence.
Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre
The centre, known as SC3, was established following a call from ministers to develop a more collaborative approach which would support more effective intelligence sharing, assessment of national threats and risk, testing and exercising, and incident response and recovery. This was set in motion and formed part of the COVID Recovery Strategy, and the evolving threat to Scotland from cyber, which manifested itself in the SEPA Cyber Attack in December 2020.
SC3 was created as part of a vision for a digitally-resilient Scotland. As we embrace digital transformation we must be aware of and put in place frameworks that recognise and adapt to the serious and evolving cyber threat that is out there.
SC3 is the focal point for Scotland’s cyber security and resilience, providing services to help protect against cyber incidents while promoting adherence to appropriate standards and best practices across critical functions and infrastructure. It supports the delivery of the strategic framework for a cyber resilient Scotland.
In September 2024, SC3 published our strategic plan 2024 to 2027. It provides an overview of SC3’s operating principles, functional structure, and service development plans to support the mission and objectives of the Scottish Cyber Coordination Centre.
These included creating a data-driven operation to track and evaluate actionable security metrics for every public sector organisation in Scotland, keeping all organisations informed, equipped and prepared to manage and deal with current and emerging risks and threats to reduce potential vulnerabilities, increase the level of preparedness for cyber incidents, and ensure good practices and standards are adopted and adhered to.
